


Adventures Against Evil

by NicktheHuman



Category: Adventure Time, Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-05-30 00:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15085487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicktheHuman/pseuds/NicktheHuman
Summary: After surrendering her wand, Star sleep portals once again in search of her mother, followed by Marco. Landing uninterrupted in the Land of Ooo, Finn and Jake decide to give our heroes a helping hand as they search for Queen Moon. But what they find may not be what they hoped.Set after Divide Conquer, and the Gumball War.





	1. Come Along With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of these properties, they are the intellectual property of their creators. This is a fan work.

Adventures Against Evil  
Chapter 1: Come Along With Me  
___________________________________________________________________________

I thought sleep portals were a thing of the past. Guess not. As if dealing with rampant teenage jealousy, getting my soul sucked out of me, and not having faced Tom since telling him I kissed Star, I didn’t think this week could get worse. 

River sent Star and I back to my parents’ house while the castle was rebuilt. Star hadn’t thought of that before surrendering her wand, but I digress. My parents were more than thrilled to see me, but Star...Star was still pretty messed up. She didn’t want to talk about it after everything that happened, so I gave her some space. She passed out on the couch pretty quick, unable to make a new room without her wand. I was pretty exhausted too, so it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep either.

I was woken a few hours later to the familiar sound of portals, and a glowing light filling the whole house. I knew what it was. My eyes shot open, I hastily grabbed my closest hoodie and charged down the stairs. 

It never ceases to amaze me, seeing Star turn into this six-armed butterfly...thing. But as she was hurtling towards the portal above my couch, I snapped out of it, hit the floor running, and was able to snatch her left foot. But she’s pretty strong in this form, and we both got sucked into the portal. Didn’t think that one through, Diaz.

____________________________________________________________________________

The Gumbald War was over. At least, that’s probably what they’ll call all that bliz. 

Not without loss though. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to think about it. I just lived it.

“Hey, buddy...you okay?” 

I looked down. Jake grabbed my metal hand out of worry, but he can’t hide his own worries. Seeing my bro like this maths up my brain. 

Brave face, Finn. You’re a buff, bionic, baby. I look up. Lady Rainicorn is bawling over Jake Jr.’s body, surrounded by the other Rainicorn pups.

“Yeah man. Go...go be with your family.” I give him a thumbs up.

He doesn’t object, and stretches over to his girlfriend without another word. 

I look down. I’m still standing over what’s left of Fern.

“I wish...it didn’t have to go down like this.” I mumble.

I don’t know how I pulled off taking him and Gumbald down. When they took down Jake I just...snapped.

I jump as a hand lands on my shoulder. “AH! Oh. Hey Peebs.”

“Hey Finn...can you...can you get your sword out of my uncle’s head?” Princess Bubblegum had a smile on, but it was one of those empty ones. Like when I put stuff in The Vault.

“Wow. THAT’S an uncomfortable question. Sure.” 

I retrieve my sword, and walk back over to Bubblegum, trying my hardest to not look around me. 

“So...now what?” I asked.

She turned her back to me. “I’ll have Pep But and Starchy clean this up. I’ll probably do a ceremony...bologna...blah blah blee bloo. I dunno. Just...you can go.”

I looked around. Jake and Lady, and the rest of the kids had taken Jake Jr. and left. I didn’t need to see that Bubblegum was looking across the field at what remained of Marceline, or how hard she was trying not to cry. 

I took off running. There was someone I had lost track of, someone I needed to find. 

“Huntress Wizard!” I yelled, looking around frantically, “HUNTRESS WIZARD?!”

“Finn?”” 

I heard her voice, weakly coming from somewhere around. “H.W., where are you?!”

“Right here, ya dork.” I heard her push some rubble off of herself, and I whipped around to see she got buried under some rubble. I ran to her and helped her out. 

“Are you okay, are you hurt?” I asked. 

She coughed and shakily stood up. “My legs got busted up pretty bad. I’ve been here using all my arrows and some sticks and grass to magic them back to normal though.” 

I sighed and pulled her into a tight hug. I could see her turning red as I pulled her in, but she didn’t fight it, and hugged me back. “Sounds like we won?”

I pulled back and shrugged. “Yeah. Doesn’t feel like it.” 

She frowned, looking around the grasslands with me, taking in the scene. “Let’s...let’s go home Finn.”

“Yeah...the treehouse isn’t too far.”

I grabbed her hand, probably more for my benefit than hers, and we began the walk back. 

I think this is too big for The Vault.  
____________________________________________________________________________

SPLOOSH!

Star and I landed in some filthy pond, and I only had a second to get my wits about me, as Star’s unconscious body tumbled into mine. I grabbed her under my arm and began pulling us back to the surface. I inhaled the night air sharply, making sure I hoisted Star’s head above the surface, and swam us to the shore. It was a tiny pond, but it sure was deep. I almost thought I saw...something down there. 

I pulled both of us to the grass, and looked up at a giant tree, towering over the two of us. 

I sat up. Star was still asleep, somehow. But she had gone back to her normal, adorable, wonderful - get a grip Marco - self. Nothing had woken her up...so...why here? Why bring us here? This didn’t look like that realm of magic place. Was this Mewni? 

“Don’t move, or these arrows are going up your nose.” A voice said from over my head. I looked up to see some...weird...monster girl, with leaves for hair, standing over me. And sure enough an arrow was floating above me, and one above Star. 

Before I could say anything, some weird, human-like person was walking up to her, in some red footie pajamas. “Easy, H.W.,” he said. He looked down at me. “What’s your name, guy?”

I scrambled up to my feet and held my hands up to show I wasn’t armed. These two were weird. The pajama kid looked vaguely human, but his face was really different. Not only that, he had a metal arm. And the arrow-leaf-woman didn’t look like any human, mewman, or monster I had ever seen.

“Do you speak my language, buddy?” The pajama man asked. 

They don’t seem hostile, at least. “Yeah, sorry...I’m Marco. Marco Diaz.”

He extended a fist to me, so I hesitantly returned his fist pound. “Finn Mertens, man. This is Huntress Wizard.”

Before I could stop myself, I raised an eyebrow and asked, “Your name is...Huntress Wizard?”

“It’s more of a title.” She replied, almost proud. 

“So M-Daz, what’re you and your friend doing? Swimming with our water nymphs?” Finn asked, as if late night trespassers was totally normal for him. 

“Is she okay?” Huntress Wizard asked.

“I...water nymphs? What? No, I...” I started to breathe faster and panic, and before I knew it, was just spluttering out, “Star transformed and she opened this portal, and she hasn’t done that in forever and now we’re here and I don’t know where we are and -”

Abruptly, Finn put his index finger on my mouth. It smelled like a mixture of mud and candy. “Shhhhhh. Easy there, guy.”

“What...?” Was all I managed to answer.

“I take it Star is your friend, and you guys just kinda ended up here? I caught that much.” Huntress Wizard added. 

I took a deep breath. “Yes. And can we get her inside? I’m worried.”

Finn shrugged and gave a small smile. “Sure thing man.”

I was a bit surprised. This guy is waaaaaaay too agreeable. Hasn’t he heard of stranger danger?

He knelt down and scooped Star over his shoulder with his metal arm. “We got couches out the bizonk, man, you guys can crash here.” 

He turned and walked towards the tree, and I realized it had a massive house built into it. I looked at Huntress Wizard, and she just shrugged at me, gave a small smile, and said, “That’s Finn, for you. Like a nurturing, sexy wolf mama.”

“...what?” I whispered to myself as I followed them inside.

Speaking of inside, this treehouse cool as heck. The front room was pretty deserted, but as I followed them up a ladder, we came out into a massive log cabin type room, with wooden stoves, couches, tables. He laid down Star on a couch and scratched his head. “Alright, what did Jake always say about guests...?” Then he snapped his metal fingers, “Right, sorry, you guys want anything to drink or anything?”

“Uh...no...I’m okay, thank you.” 

 

Huntress Wizard glanced at another set of ladders behind Finn. “You got this handled, babe? Mama needs shut eye keep meat hard.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep anyway. Plus, you turn into a log when you sleep, so falling asleep after you is weird.”

What did I just walk in to...?

She gave him a peck on the cheek and climbed up into a different part of the tree house. “Night, boys!”

Once she was gone, Finn turned to me. “So, what’s your deal, M.D.? Are you guys from Wizard City? Some sort of Portal Kingdom?”

I tilted my head. “What? No, I’m human. And Star here is the princess of Mewni. She’s magic.”

“”WHOA!” Finn breathed, “You’re human?! So you guys came from the island? Wait...no...” He scratched his chin, “Mom never mentioned a Mewni...Does that mean human’s are on other parts of Ooo?”

“Ooo?” I asked. “What’s Ooo?”

Finn’s eyes widened. “Oh wow. You’re...really not from around here. Ooo is the planet, pretty much. It’s a bunch of magical kingdoms and stuff. There’s the Candy Kingdom, Slime Kingdom, Hot Dog Kingdom, Fire Kingdom, Lumpy Space, Wildberry Kingdo - Hey, you okay Marco?”

I was frantically digging through my pockets for my dimensional scissors. Wherever Star had taken us was WAY weird. Not the weirdest place, but now that some of the shock had worn off, I needed to get her back before my parents noticed she was gone. 

“Sorry, just looking for something,” I sighed, defeated. They were in my jeans, which were on my dresser. I was still in my pajama pants. Star would have to get us out of here, whenever that happened. “I’m pretty sure we’re in another dimension.”

“Oh, like the farm one?” Finn asked.

“...no.” I answered. At least this guy seemed with it, and not freaked out by all this. 

“Well, once morning comes we can probably ask Princess Bubblegum, she’s super smart. She can probably science you up some sort of portal,” Finn explained. “Probably   
want your friend to wake up though.” He looked over my shoulder. “Hey, does she usually turn into a big old butterfly?”

“What?!” I yelled, whipping around to see Star, once again sleep transformed...lightly bumping into the window. Why she wasn’t using a portal was beyond me. 

She bumped the window once more, and shelf above the window collapsed, dropping a large book on Star’s head. She instantly reverted back to normal, dropped back to the ground, and screamed, “MOM!”

“Star!” I ran over to her, as Finn clasped his hands to his cheeks and inhaled sharply. 

“Ah, I thought Jake fixed that shelf. My bad.”

I put an arm under Star as she rolled over. “Oww... Marco?”

Star sprang up, and automatically reached for her wand to point at Finn, but it was gone... “Where are we?”

Finn waved nonchalantly. “Sup. I’m Finn, this is me and my brother Jake’s treehouse. Where’d you put the rest of your arms?”

Star turned slowly to me wide-eyed. “Marco Diaz, what happened?”

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose with my thumb and finger. “You sleep portaled again. We’re here. Some placed called Ooo. I left my dimensional scissors in my other pants. And this is Finn.”

Finn waved again. “Sup.”

Star reverted back to her usual self. “Oh, I love your footie pajamas!”

“Ha, thanks, it’s toasty on my hams.” Finn smiled and gave a thumbs up as he said this. Talk about a chill guy.

Star turned, again, and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me. “MARCO! I had a dream! About Mom!”

I gently took her hands off my shoulders. “Okay, what happened?”

“It was after I went to look for her in the Realm of Magic...we got zapped away by a unicorn...but I don’t know where she went. But she was in my dream...I think I was chasing after her!”

“And you chased your mom here?” I asked, incredulously. “HERE?!”

“This sounds serious. I’m gonna make tea,” Finn said to neither of us in particular, “Tea usually helps. I’ll uh...find where Jake keeps it.”

“Marco, if I didn’t try to portal out of here when I turned all golden again, this HAS to be the place!” There was no mistaking the look of conviction on her face: she wasn’t going to leave until she had found her mom.

“Alright, that’s fine, we can look here,” I reassured her, “but first, we should get out of our pajamas, get my dimensional scissors, and at least let my parents know where we are. We kind of just straight up disappeared in the middle of the night. I don’t think my super pregnant mom needs that kind of shock right now.”

Star smiled and ruffled my hair. “That’s a good squire. Always thinking ahead. I’ll be right back.”

Before I could form the word, “wait,” she turned back into her golden butterfly mode, opened a portal and popped through it. Finn was watching from the stove.

“Hey, should I still pour her some tea?” He asked, “Also, how’s she doing that? She a witch? Also also, you want sugar? Also also also, it’s coffee. Couldn’t find tea.”

“Uhhhh...sure, please. And yeah, she’ll be back soon. I hope.” I answered. “And she’s not a witch. I mean, maybe kind of? She uses magic and has...had a wand and stuff. But she’s the princess of the place we’re from. I probably wouldn’t call her a witch.” 

“Right on, MarcDaz,” Finn said, “you do any cool magic biz too?”

I scratched the back of my head. “Nah...just a normal human. I do karate and punch monsters with her sometimes.”  
Finn laughed, “Yeah man, fighting bad dudes is right in my element. Check my cool Nightosphere sword.” 

He pulled a sword off the fireplace mantle and showed it to me. It was incredibly cold to the touch, and I shivered and pulled away as I touched the hilt. “Why does it give me chills and fill me with dread?”

“Yeah, that’s the dark Nightosphere magic. Sorry.” Finn said, putting the sword away, and poured some coffee. 

Abruptly, a portal ripped through the room, and Star re-emerged, holding my dimensional scissors and my pants. She immediately threw the pants at my face. “Get dressed Maro, we’re - Oh, thank you Finn,” She paused and sipped the coffee Finn just handed to her, and he handed a steaming mug to me as well, “Get dressed Marco, we’re going to go find my mom!”

“You might want to wait until morning,” Finn said, pointing to the window. “It’s the middle of the night. It’s also kinda messed up outside.”

“Messed up?” Star asked, bouncing up and down. She was anxious to get out of here.

Finn looked down but didn’t break his tone. “There was...a war. The battlefield is still being taken care of...it was bad news.”

He shifted, uneasily. “In the morning we can visit Princess Bubblegum. She’s the smartest person in Ooo, probably. She can probably help.”

“Princess Bubblegum?” Star raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, check it out,” Finn waved us over to the table. Walking over, we saw a big, colorful map spread across it, with various coffee stains and food grease. “We’re here, in the Grasslands. And right next to us is the Candy Kingdom. Princess Bubblegum is in charge, and she’s super into sciencey stuff. She can totally help you find your mom and stuff. Maybe.”

“THERE’S A WHOLE KINGDOM MADE OF CANDY?!” Star yelled, excitedly.

I shushed her, “Stop! Finn’s girlfriend is sleeping!”

“There’s a whole kingdom made of candy?!” Star whisper-screamed.

He shook his head. “Huntress Wizard can sleep through anything. One time B-Mo went banaynays and donked up the whole bedroom in a fight with N.E.P.T.R., woke up our neighbor Banana Man and everything. I think it’s because she turns into a log.”

“Don’t you mean...sleeps like a log?” I asked.

“No.” Finn shook his head. “Turns into a log. I woke up one day spooning a hunk of wood. Got splinters. It was bunk.”

“Less logs. Tell me about the candy.” Star interrupted, deadly serious.

“Yeah, it’s where all the candy people live.” He paused. “Don’t eat them. You can eat the sidewalk though. And some of the walls, if Bubblegum ain’t looking.”

Star turned, and grabbed my hands excitedly. “Marco, let’s just live here. Let’s move Mewni here and live with the candy people. Just you and me!” She looked down at what she was doing, and pulled her hands away, both of us turning red. “A-and Tom. Of course. Can't forget...Tom.”

Finn seemed to pick up on our embarrassment and scratched the back of his head uneasily. “Well anyway,” he chugged his coffee down, “I’m-a leave you guys to it. We’ll leave in the morning. You guys will love my bro, Jake. Feel free to crash on any of these rad couches.”

“How can you sleep after drinking coffee?” I asked.

“It was sleepy time coffee. It worked on Star.” 

I looked to see Star had already laid down on the couch beside the table. I sat down next to her and felt a bit drowsy myself. 

“Oh...thanks Finn.” I said. 

“No probs, Mac-D. Night.”

I slid down into a slumped position and let my eyelids slide shut. Whatever this adventure was, was going to be...different. That’s for sure. As Star drifted off to sleep, she pulled her head on to my lap. I stroked her hair. I should feel guilty about this...


	2. A Little Weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for the Queen is on. But what waits for our heroes when they find her?

“Okay, now be an elephant!” 

That was Star’s voice. 

“Alright, check this out!”

That voice I didn’t recognize, but it was followed by some weird...rubbery noise? I heard Star, and two other voices laugh. I recognized them as Finn and Huntress Wizard.  
Finn and Huntress Wizard. Ah right. I guess that means the sleep portal and being in some weird place called Ooo wasn’t a dream. Greeeaaaaaaaat.

“That is like , THE COOLEST MAGIC EVER, Jake!” Star squealed excitedly.

“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome,” came a voice from whoever Jake must be, “glad it gets recognized.”

Well, time to get back to whatever this adventure was going to be. I pulled myself up to a sitting position on the couch, rubbed my eyes and stretched. I was immediately tackled back down onto the couch by Star, and I opened my eyes to see her hugging me tight. 

“Good mooooooooorning, sleepyhead!” She sang at me, “Come meet our new friend, Jake.”

She got off me and I stood up, not being able to help smiling at such a greeting. I looked around to see Finn, Huntress Wizard, and a yellow dog standing on two feet, but no Jake.

Unless...

“Are you...Jake?” I asked the dog.

“You got it, bud.” The dog replied, stretching his arm the entire length of the room to shake my hand.

“UUUHHHHH WHAT?” I yelled, jumping back, causing everyone to laugh.

“Yeah M-Doodles.” Finn said, “Jake is my magical dog brother. Show him the elephant again, Jake.”

Jake nodded and morphed his whole body into an elephant the size of the room, before shrinking back down. 

“You’d be surprised how many wackos land in our pond.” Jake said. “Let’s go see P-Bubs about finding the big butterfly lady.”

“Uhhhh...” I grunted in confusion.

“I explained the best I could.” Finn shrugged. “Magic portal, Star turning into a butterfly, looking for mom. You coming, H.W.?”

Huntress Wizard shook her head. “I need to check out the Forest. Make sure everything’s not donked all to Mars and back. Be careful, boys.” 

She gave Finn a quick kiss, and turned to us, “Good luck, you guys. Don’t let anything happen to Finn, or you know where the arrows go.”

“Up my nose?” I answered, cautiously.

She pointed and winked. “Now you’re getting it.”

Star gave me a very confused look, and I just shrugged.

Finn laughed. “I can handle myself, ya butt. Come on guys, let’s bounce.”

As we stepped out onto the Grassland, Star asked Finn, “You two are adorable together! How long you guys been going out?”

Finn crossed his arms behind his head. “That’s complicated. Couple months? Thanks though.”

“Psh, they were making googly eyes at each other forever ago,” Jake disagreed, “I saw them hanging out, and it was pretty clear she was looking for a sweet, dope boyfriend like my little Finn.”

Finn rolled his eyes, “Yeah yeah, you saw it coming.”

Jake got down on all fours and stretched himself out. “Alright, hop on.”

Finn did immediately, seating himself by Jake’s shoulders. Star and I looked at each other, confused, but sat on Jake’s back too. Jake suddenly expanded himself, growing huge, and stretching his legs stories high.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I screamed clutching Star around the waist. “So...high...”

“Hold on, ya wacky teens!” Jake called, galloping towards a castle in the distance.

“Aw, Marco,” Star teased, “I didn’t realize you were scared of heights.”

I straightened myself back out and held onto Jake’s fur. “I’m not scared....just...startled.”

“Riiiiiiiiiiiight,” Star teased. 

“Alright guys, like I said yesterday, no eating any candy people.” Finn said.

“Unless they deserve! it” Jake added, and he and Finn laughed.

As Jake galloped across the fields, Finn started scrunching up his stomach, and pounding on it gently.

“Are you okay?” Star asked.

“Yeah let me just...here we go!”

Finn began to sing in an auto-tuned voice. “Baby! I know what you need! You want your little baby socks - on your little baby feet!”

“Whoo!” Jake cheered.

“Baby!” Finn sang.

“How are you singing like an angel?” Star asked in awe.

“Oh, one time I swallowed a tiny computer. Gave me some sweet pipes.” Finn answered.

“That doesn’t make sense!” I protested.

“But it’s AMAZING!” Star added. 

“I mean...it is kind of cool.” I agreed, in spite of myself.

We approached the gates of a kingdom pretty quickly, but Jakes stepped over them,and around some buildings until we got to a castle tower. He stretched us over to a window, and turned his sides into a staircase. It was weird, but we all walked down, and he stretched himself inside. 

“Welcome to the candy castle!” Jake exclaimed, waving his arms around like pool noodles.

I was too taken aback to really say anything. In the hallways were these weird...banana people carrying spears. 

“Hey Banana Guards, where’s PB?” Finn asked.

“Hey Finn. She’s in the lab down the hall. Who are your weird looking friends?”

“Other humans!” Finn exclaimed, proudly. 

“AHEM!” Star butted in, proudly puffing her chest. “I am, a Mewman Princess.”

“Mewman? Is that like a cat person?” Banana Guard One asked. 

“Don’t you see her horns? She said Moo-Man.” Replied the other Banana Guard, “She’s princess of the Cow Kingdom.”

“AH! I’m sorry, your royal Cow Princess!”

“O-okay, bye guys.” Finn interrupted.

I couldn’t hold in my snickers as we followed Finn and Jake. Star glanced at me, pouting. “Not a word, Marco Diaz.”

“Aw come on, Cow Princess,” I giggled, “I could milk that one all day.”

Finn snickered and added, “How...udderly rude of you, M-Dog.”

Star groaned and Jake shook his head with a little chuckle.

“Hahaha, I’m the princess of cows. Great.” Star said, but she was starting to smile a bit. 

Finn opened what was apparently the lab door, and called out, “Hey Peebs, you here?”

The princess was a tall woman, and Bubblegum was pretty accurate...she was completely pink and made out of gum. Creative name. She was standing at a lab table over a box of ashes, looking at them under a telescope. 

“Finn, I...I’m sorry, there won’t be any ceremony about the war, I -”

Finn shook his head. “We’re not here for that. I’ve got some visitors.” He stepped to his side and gestured to Star and I. “This is Marco Diaz and Princess Star Butterfly. They came here from another dimension, and they’re looking for Star’s mom.”

Almost like a light switch was flipped insider her, the Princess sprang to life. “What. The. Junk?!?!” 

She grabbed me and Star’s hands and pulled us closer to her. “Tell me everything about what the blood just happened to you!”  
____________________________________________________________________________

 

Where...where am I?

Okay, calm yourself Moon. Recollect, and don’t panic. 

I was fighting Meteora...Eclipsa stopped me. I got blasted. I ended up...somewhere with Unicorns and lost it for a bit. Star was there...

Well, that doesn’t answer any questions, but at least I remember what happened. Whoever found me has chained me up to the floor, and whatever this place was looked like the inside of the cave. 

“Ugh. If I’ve been captured by Ludo, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

I tried to activate my magic to break the chains, but for some reason...my powers were depleted. “Hmm...weird. Can’t remember that ever happening.”

Looks like I wasn’t going anywhere for the time being.

“That’s right. You won’t be.”

That was not my voice.

I could not see anyone around me, but it appears I have company. 

“Very astute, Queen Butterfly. Please, relax. You are not in any immediate danger.” 

“That’s not exactly reassuring.” I replied. “But I can assure you, you’re making a grave mistake. Once I get out of here, I’ll have your head.”

The voice laughed. “Oh, Queen Butterfly. That would be threatening if I only had a head to give you.” 

He laughed, and a cold presence washed over the room. 

This is just what I needed today.  
____________________________________________________________________________

Marco and Star had finished their explanation, going into more detail about Star’s magical princess-y type stuff, and the struggle they had just gone though. Man...it’s like war just can’t be avoided anywhere. Or is that a really pessimistic way to look at it? I reached under my hat to scratch my head.

Anyway...Princess Bubblegum was all about this. She hooked up all sorts of electrode type things to Star and had her stand on some platform.

“Alright, so if you’re crazy golden wacky form is homing in on your mom, you guys must have the same magical signature, and that’s what you use to find one another.” Princess Bubblegum explained as she hooked the wires from Star to her computer. She examined the monitor. “But you have magical readings out the ding dong, girl.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Star said, bragging a little, “Magic out the ding dong.”

“So I need to see what makes your other form so different. If I can isolate it, maybe we can track it. So I just need you to change back and forth like...a kajillion times.” Bubblegum replied. 

“Oh. Yeah, okay, easy enough.” Star shrugged and began changing back and forth, lighting up the room and looking away. It kinda hurt my eyes so I turned away a bit. Jake had gotten bored and was sniffing around some chemicals. Marco looked pretty concerned though, which I guess makes sense. His girlfriend’s mom is missing and it sounds like Ooo is kinda weird for them. He’s looked like a confused puppy since he got here; kinda like when I would use a laser pointer to mess with Jake and Jermaine.

He turned to me and asked, “So wait, you can trace magic? With science?”

I shrugged. “I told you dude. Prubs is like the most genius scientist in Ooo.”

“Thanks Finn!” PB yelled from her computer, not looking up. 

“She’s the one who made this sweet arm for me, too.” I added, knocking my fist against my robo-arm. “This baby’s got all sorts of rad settings. And I can still play my flute with it.”

Marco tilted his head at me and smiled a bit. “You can play the flute with that thing?”

I grinned. Now it was my turn to show off a bit. I pulled my flute out of my bag and played my serenade that I had used to win over Huntress Wizard, when we summoned the spirit of the forest. 

I stopped, and saw everyone in the room was staring at me, including Star, who had stopped transforming, and they were giving me rather awestruck looks. I blushed hardcore. 

“That...was BEEE---YOO--TIFUL!” Star squealed, jumping up and down and clapping. 

“Yeah man, I’m sorry I doubted your musical abilities.” Marco said. “You’re just full of surprises.”

I scratched the back of my head and put the flute away. “Thanks guys. Anyway, what are you picking up, Peebs?”

Star began transforming and going back again. “These readings are bananas like what.” Princess Bubblegum exclaimed.

“How come science didn’t sound like this on Earth?” Star asked Marco, “I actually kind of get what they’re saying.”

“No, those aren’t science terms, I’m just mad excited about what I’m seeing,” Peebs explained. 

“Star, your magic isn’t powered by bananas. I mean, probably anyway.” Marco laughed.

“You don’t know that for certain, Marco Diaz!” Star replied, sticking her tongue out as she changed from golden to regular. “My Narwhal blast always packs a little bit more punch when I’ve had my potassium.”

“Hey Finn,” Jake said, stretching his face around the room, “Remember in the Nightosphere when it turned out demons poop bananas out of their ears?”

I cringed. “I try specifically to not remember that, every day.”

Jake laughed and unstretched himself, “That’s why I like to remind you!”

“Dang it, Jake.” I sighed.

“Aw, Marco, are you going to tease your brother like that?” Star asked.

“Ha, well, probably not quite like that...”

“Alright, that’s enough guys,” Bubblegum said, “I’ve created a magical profile for Star’s butterfly biz. But finding a way to track it is going to be tricky. Star, do you feel anything   
different when you’re transformed?”

“Um, I feel awesome and super powerful,” She replied, putting four of her hands on her hips. 

“Well that’s....good,” Peebs replied, “But not what I meant. There’s no subconscious urges to travel anywhere in particular, no deep-seeded homing instincts buzzing around up there?”

The cocky smile vanished from Star’s face. “No...I don’t know what it is, but I only seem to have these urges when I’m sleeping. I...”

Before she could continue, Princess Bubblegum reached into a pocket on her lab coat and threw a powder in Star’s face, while yelling, “Pocket Sleep Dust!”

Star coughed, “Hey, what the - zzzzzzzzz.” 

She fell to the floor, asleep. 

“When did....when did you make that?” I asked.

Peebs shrugged. “A while ago, I just always forget I keep it in my lab coats.”

“Huh.” I answered. That’s a bit questionable, but, you know, I’m just gonna let that one go.

“Open the door, will you Jake?” She asked, and he did so, “Now when she goes, I’ll test to see if I can follow her energy signature from my computer - WHAT THE SHRAMP.”

Star had already taken to the air, and instead of flying out of the door, she blasted a hole in the side of the castle and flew out. 

“Star!” Marco yelled.

“My wall!” Peebs screamed.

“Unexpected course of events!” Jake shouted.

“Jake, come on!” I yelled, running to the hole.

“You got it, buddy!” He grabbed Marco and I in giant fists, and stretched his legs out until he was able to pull us out of the castle, turn into a giant, and give chase as we followed Star across the fields of Ooo.

“Be careful guys!” I could hear PB yelling from behind us. 

“Dang man, she’s fast!” Jake panted as Star flew past the gates of the kingdom.

“Please, don’t lose her!” Marco pleaded, fear in his voice. 

“Hang in there Jake, you can do it!” I cheered. 

I could see what he meant though. She was zipping all over, zigzagging through the sky. She came to the lake where Jake and I built our gauntlet dock and kept flying over it. Jake threw Marco and I up and went to all fours, the two of us landing on his back so he could have more mobility in the water.

“Where is she going?!” Marco screamed from behind me.

“I mean, there’s a lot over this way so I’m not sure.” I answered, “But I’m kinda getting those bad jubies feelings in my guts about one of the places she could be going.”

“Bad jubies?!” 

“Yeah, you know, that bad feeling something donk is going to happen?” I replied.

“WHY?!” 

“It’s probably fine!” I said.

It wasn’t fine. She was heading right for that horrible place from years ago. Star flew over to an abandoned staircase, and flew down it. Jake, finally caught up to her, set us on the ground, and we gave chase to some old underground train station.

“Finn...this place gives me the willies,” Jake whined. 

I drew my sword. “Willies all around, bro. Eyes peeled.” 

“Can one of you tell me what’s going on?” Marco yelled. 

I turned and grabbed Marco’s shoulder. “This place...is like the worst.”

Marco’s face fell. “Something really bad lives here, doesn’t it? I’ve seen that expression before.”

Before I could answer, the concrete under my feet gave out, and we fell down into the familiar well. 

The well of the Lich. 

I groaned, picking myself off the ground, “Are you guys okay?”

“MARCO!” Yelled a voice from the other side of the room, but it wasn’t one I knew. 

Marco must have though, because he ran over, yelling, “Queen Moon!” But he stopped and looked over the well. Star was just...floating there, blank look in her eyes. She wasn't   
glowing as brightly, either. He ran over to the older lady, and I saw she was chained up. But as he got close, a voice I recognized called out from the bottom of the well. 

“Fall.” 

Jake and Marco fell to the ground. The room went black around me, but I’ve been through this before. My legs shook but I stayed on my feet. 

“Not this time, Lich.” I growled, gritting my teeth.

“My, you are persistent, aren’t you Finn.”

“Dang it!” I shouted, fighting my crazy gelatin legs, “I saw Sweet P stab you! How many times we gotta kill you, Lich?! It’s not even fun! You’re boring Lich! You’re Vanilla Generic Villain!”

There was a pause, but the Lich laughed. 

“When I came to this dimension, I was shocked to see that you’ve killed two version of me, young one.” The Lich said, “But I followed your red-hooded friend to this place some years ago.”

I heard Marco mutter, “m-me?” Weakly from across the room.

“Yes, when you spent years chasing after a magic pair of scissors...you hopped through here, and I decided to stay. I know you’d be back.” The Lich was practically gloating now, really grinding my gears.

“I come from his dimension, but amidst all the chaos of Mewni, I needed the best time to strike. And this...well, this is the best chance of any.” The Lich explained. “A powerless queen, the wand disappeared along with the Queen of Darkness...and the empty-headed princess who will do anything to find mommy.”

“What’d you do to Star’s mom?” I yelled, regaining my strength. “Come out here and FIGHT ME!”

Without warning, the Lich appeared in front of me, and grabbed the sides of my head.

Flashbacks from yesterday swarmed my mind. Marceline getting staked by Fern, Jake Jr. getting roasted by Scorcher. Fern dying at my hands. 

My mind raced and my stomach lurched, and I dropped to all fours and blew chunks.

I expected the Lich to finish me off, but instead he laughed, and backed up to his well. To my surprised, he spread his arms and fell backwards into the pit. It exploded into green light, and slew of green, vaporous ghosts flew up...

And into Star, right up her nose. Jake, Marco, and the now freed Queen Moon stood up groggily. The well extinguished itself as quickly as it had lit up.

“Star, Star are you alright?!” Queen Moon yelled to her daughter.

Star’s eyes flickered open, but they were empty and black, with tiny white slits for pupils. Abruptly, two large goat horn bones burst from the side of her head. Her golden aura turned a sickly green. 

She cracked a sickening smile, and said,”Star’s not here right now.”

“Oh....poop.” I breathed, terrified.


	3. Very Distant Lands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Star possessed by the Lich, it's up to Marco, Finn, Jake, and Huntress Wizard to try and prevent her from destroying Mewni.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing, as previously stated

Some squire I am. How could I let this happen to Star? Is that even Star anymore? "What did you do?!" I screamed.

The Lich, or Star, or whatever I wanted to call her, just turned and blasted at me with one of her arms. I barely had time to jump out of the way.

"Marco, take Star's mom and get out of here!" Finn yelled as Star blasted at him and he rolled along the ground to dodge.

Moon ignored Finn, and her hands began to glow. "Unhand my daughter at once, you-"

The Lich didn't let her finish, blasting at her. Moon went to swat the spell away, but instead of repelling it, the blast burnt her hand. There was no mistaking the smell of burnt flesh. She yelled in pain and fell to the ground.

"Such power..." Queen Moon muttered, keeping her composure. "For some reason my magic is still weak here."

"Jake, get them out of here!" Finn yelled. The Lich shot a ray of green energy at Finn, but he held up his sword, the dark magic of - whatever he called it, the Nightosphere - absorbed the blast. "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT, YA DINGUS?! All that power and you couldn't hit the fat side of a barn!"

The Lich swooped down, but before I could see more, Jake had wrapped long noodle arms around myself and the queen, and stretched us up the tunnel we came through, up the subway stairs, and onto the field.

"What are you doing, we have to help Star!" I shouted, trying to duck past the dog, but he grew his hand to my height and pushed me back.

"Look Marco," barked Jake, "you seem like a cool kid, but you gotta get out of here! This is bad biz!"

Jake stretched himself down the stairs, and I immediately heard more blasts and shouts.

"Queen Moon, are you alright?" I asked.

She stood up and shook off her hand. "Stay put, Marco."

She angrily transformed into her own Butterfly form, and charged down the stairs. "Now I fight."

"...Getting real tired of being pushed out of the way! I'm her flipping SQUIRE!" I growled, running down after her. I screeched to a halt at the bottom of the stairs though, peering down into the now destroyed concrete floor.

I held in a shocked gasp. In the, what, thirty second head start Moon had on me, The Lich had blasted her into a heap on the ground. Jake, as well, was motionless next to her. Only Finn remained, but he wasn't faring too well. He had used his arms to try and wrestle the Lich to the ground. But since Star had six arms, she was able to use two of them to hoist Finn off the ground, and use the other four to pummel him in the chest and stomach.

I reached for my dimensional scissors. I only had one shot to get this right. Deep breath, Diaz.

I cut a portal below me, the receiving end right above Finn and Lich. I flipped into it, and burst through the other end, landing in an axe kick across the top of the Lich's head. Star's body fell to the ground, and Finn collapsed next to me. But he was more resilient than he looked, as he struggled to his feet.

Star's body was motionless. Finn and I exchanged nervous glances, but he nodded at me and towards her. We approached slowly. Suddenly, her head jerked up, and her eyes, for a split second, looked normal.

"M-Marco...?" She asked, voice trembling.

I never heard her like that. She had been scared about Meteora's attack, but this...this was different. It was terror.

"Star!" I yelled, running for her, but Finn grabbed the back of my hoodie, as Star's eyes rolled into the back of her head, returning to the blank black ones with white slits. As if a limp puppet, Star's body floated up by the head.

"She's more resistant than I thought. But you." The Lich had Star's finger point to me, before dropping it to her side, limply, "You have made a grave error. Mewni shall fall first. Then Earth. And you will watch."

The Lich used Star's power to tear a portal, and vanished through it before I could say anything else.

I dropped to my knees. How could I let this happen?

I don't know how long I was like that, but I was snapped out of my trance when I saw Finn kneeling next to Queen Moon, digging through his green backpack.

"What are you doing?" I asked numbly.

Finn pulled out a small vial. "Cyclops tears."

"Ex...cuse me?" I replied.

He splashed some of the clear goo over Queen Moon. "A few drops of this will heal any injury. I carry tons of this stuff everywhere I go."

He was already running over to Jake by the time Moon had gotten up. As crazy as it sounded, Finn knew his stuff; the burn on Moon's hand was gone. She rushed right past Finn and Jake and grabbed my shoulders. "Marco, what happened?"

"We...Finn and I...managed to drive her away. But she's going to attack Mewni." I looked down. I had let her down. Again.

"Then we must leave at once!" Moon said, preparing to transform again.

"Wait." Finn said, causing Moon to turn.

"I'm sorry, but you are...?" Moon asked.

"Sorry Queen Moon, this is Finn," I said, pointing, "and that's his brother, Jake the Dog."

"Sup?" Jake said with a small wave.

"I'm sorry, Queen, but we need to warn Princess Bubblegum first. The Lich is bad news, and I'm usually the last person to say this, but we need a plan." Finn explained.

Moon shook her head and transformed. "There is a threat to my throne and my daughter, I'm leaving at once."

"It's more than that!" Finn pleaded, "The Lich's only goal is complete, multiversal extinction. He is a threat to anything in existence!"

"Then I will make this quick." Moon transformed and opened a portal. I walked forward, but to my surprise, she pushed me away. "Stay here. I'll come back for you."

She was gone before I could protest.

"Huh. I know she's a queen or whatever, but that was kinda rude." Finn said, plainly.

I pulled out my dimensional scissors, but I paused. "I can go back with these, but...what do you mean about this Lich guy?"

Finn sighed. "We'll explain on the way back to the Candy Kingdom. Princess Bubblegum NEEDS to know about this. Come on, Jake."

Before I knew it, we were riding Jake back to the castle.

"The Lich is a creation of the Great Mushroom War, from one thousand years ago. He is the embodiment of evil, and lives only to end life," Finn explained. "He's also a genius, nothing we've ever used to kill him has ever worked more than once. He lives only to end all."

"But why? What does he gain from that?" I asked.

"He doesn't want to gain anything. That's what I mean about boring, generic villain. He doesn't have goals, he's not out for anything. But it doesn't make him any less dangerous or any less scary." Finn answered.

"Then he's gonna go for the wand!" I realized.

"The one she said she gave up?" Finn asked. "You were asleep. She's a sharer. Told us all about the big ole fight."

"Right," I answered, "As powerful as Star is, with the wand she's way more destructive. I need to get back to Mewni ASAP to help."

"WE need to." Finn replied.

"What?" I asked, surprised.

"I know the Lich, Marco," Finn said, "and I'm the Hero of Ooo. I have a duty to track down and defeat the Lich. Even more than that..."

"Even more than what?"

"You seem like a cool guy Marco, and that axe kick was mondo sweet," Finn replied, "but sending you back to Mewni alone to face the Lich is a death sentence. He will kill you like for real. I can't do that. This isn't me doubting you, this is me knowing the Lich is bad news. Right, Jake?"

Jake said nothing.

"Jake..?" Finn asked.

Jake sighed. "Right, Finn."

Sounds like they said some things to work out, but whatever was going on sounded really bad. I won't lie, I'd rather go into this with Finn and Jake if they knew what we were getting into.

We arrived at the same hole Star had smashed through, and Jake parked us all back inside the Candy Castle. Princess Bubblegum was standing over a lab table, using a dropper to put little bits of a green liquid into a container of dust. She took one look at all of our expressions, dropped what she was doing and said, "Oh no...what happened, Finn?"

"It was a trap," he sighed, "by a version of The Lich that came from Marco's dimension."

"WHAT?!" The princess yelled, "The Lich?!"

"Yeah, it used Star's mom to lure Star there, so he could possess her. Marco helped me fight her off, but he...er, she, or whatever, fled to their home dimension. They're going to mess it up, BAD, P.B." Finn explained.

Bubblegum grabbed a small, handheld device off the table. "Then I finished the tracker just in time. You go get the Lich before he comes back. I'll prepare for the worst here."

Finn pocketed the cell-phone like device. "Thanks."

Jake grabbed Finn's hand for a moment. "I...I need to see Lady and the kids before we go."

Bubblegum looked pretty angry, "There's no time-!"

"No, it's fine Prubs," Finn replied, waving his hands, "We need to grab some stuff from the treehouse to prepare. Meet us there, Jake."

Jake took off on his stretchy legs. Finn led me out of the lab and we began to walk through the castle.

"You said Mewni is a pretty magic-based place, right?" Finn asked.

"Yeah, why?" I answered.

"We'll need some magic resistant gear then." Finn said as we left the castle. "We've got some stuff at home."

I looked around the streets. People made of candy canes and chocolate were walking the streets, and everything looked really bright and colorful. Gumdrop children chased each other around a fountain. Everything was so nice here; you'd never think something like the Lich or war would come from a place like this.

"Star would love this place," I said, unable to hide the sadness in my voice.

"Don't worry man," Finn said, patting my shoulder, "We'll get your girlfriend back."

I turned a bright red and stuttered, "S-she's not - It's not like that - I mean we're just friends..."

Finn gave me a raised eyebrow and smirked.

I looked away. "W-what?"

"Man, you got it bad." He chuckled.

I pulled my hood up over my head. "Is it that obvious?"

"Hey man, don't feel bad," Finn reassured, "I've been there. I used to be like that about Bubblegum. You tell her how you feel?"

I looked down at my feet as we walked across the bridge. "Yeah. And I kissed her. But she has a boyfriend...who is also a really good friend of mine."

"Hoo boy." Finn replied, scratching the back of his head.

"I don't even know how she feels." I said, full on venting at this point, "She never really told me. The worst part, is that she used to like me, but we didn't talk for awhile. I was dating someone else, and she got back with her ex."

"Oh dude...that does put you in a rough spot." Finn said. "Sorry. But hey, she used to like you, right?"

"Yeah..." I muttered.

Finn put his arm around me. "Of course she did! You're M-Daz. You got them sweet kicks like what like cray cray. She liked you because you're you, right? And she never told you whether she felt the same way. It's probably super complicated and messed up for her, you know? Star's gotta figure out what Star wants. You keep being your awesome self, and if you're what she wants, it'll happen. And if not, she's missing out. Life has a way of sorting this stuff out."

"You think so?" I asked.

"Yeah man, I saw how she looked at you," Finn replied. "Even if you messed up by kissing her, don't feel too bad about it. I've janked up romantic situations before. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Learn from it and keep living."

"How she looked at me...?" I wondered aloud.

Finn just laughed. "Yeah man. It's like how Jake looks at pancakes. Here comes the treehouse. Race you there, lover boy!"

Finn took off running. I couldn't help by smile a bit as I gave chase. He won, thanks to his head start, raising his arms and whooping in victory.

"Alright, you win this one," I conceded. "What are we looking for?"

Finn led me back up the ladder to the main living room, and walked over to a treasure chest that had been tucked in the corner. "Well, we'll need some more cyclops goop," he began, pulling some bottles out of there, putting his backpack on the ground, and shoving them in, "then probably some portable flame shields," he grabbed what looked like small, tiny fire kittens in a jar from the chest, "and I've got some forcefield pellets from my time in the Dungeon Train."

"There's a Dungeon Train?" I asked.

"Yup!" Finn exclaimed, packing more items, "It's a dungeon AND a train! I got so much sick loot from there."

This place was almost like a video game, apparently.

"Hmm." Finn hummed, "I think this is the best we can do. Once Jake gets here, take us to Mewni, we'll track down Star and Moon."

"Speaking of Jake, he has kids?" I asked.

Finn nodded. "Yeah, half dog, half Rainicorn. They aged quick so they're all older than me now - weird dog biology. But...we lost one...in the War."

It was my turn to reach out and grab Finn's shoulder. "I'm sorry man."

"Thanks man...Jake isn't going to show it, but this is really messing him up." Finn replied, sadly. It wasn't hard to see he was kind of messed up about it too.

Our bro moment - broment(?) - was interrupted by a voice saying, "knock knock," as Huntress Wizard walked in.

To her shock, Finn ran up and embraced her. "Whoa there, hot stuff, what's the squeeze for?"

Finn frowned and looked down, "The Lich returned, possessed Star, and fled back to Mewni. I'm going with Marco to try and help. I...may be gone awhile."

Huntress Wizard's eyes widened, and she shoved Finn back. "Finn, what the blood?"

Finn looked nervous. "I know, I just -"

Huntress Wizard pulled him back in, to Finn's surprise, and mine. "You don't run off on quests like this without me." She pulled back and smiled. "You don't get to have all the fun."

Finn smiled. "You're right, H.W. You're in. I'm sorry. I'm not used to having someone who likes to adventure with me."

She smirked. "Someone's got to protect you from yourself, you hothead."

I jumped as Jake casually waltzed into the room, "She's right, I just encourage you're bad decisions."

"You're the one making half of em!" Finn retorted. He turned to me, "Okay M.D., take us to Mewni to go save your lady."

I turned around and cut a hole to Mewn with my scissors. "After you," I motioned. The three of them piled in the portal, and I followed, closing it behind myself. But as I turned to face the castle, I was shocked to see it was up in flames.

"Is it...is it always on fire?" Huntress Wizard asked.

"It's not supposed to be," I muttered, weakly.

Finn pulled out the tracking device he'd been given by the princess. "She's not anywhere near here...neither her or the Queen. Come on, let's look for survivors."

We raced down the hill and into town, and I saw many of the houses that were in the midst of being rebuilt after Meteora's attack were back to being rubble, including ones that hadn't been touched. To his word, Finn and Jake stopped at every rubble pile to make sure no one was buried underneath. "HELLO?!" I called out through cupped hands.

Even the castle was leveled, with only the front walkway remaining. Huntress Wizard climbed a nearby lamp post and inhaled deeply. Then she hopped down. "There's no one here. I can't smell anyone above ground."

"There aren't even any bodies," Jake said, "which, you know, is good I guess, but something clearly happened here."

"Psst!" A voice whispered, causing the four of us to look around.

"Did this castle whisper?" Finn asked.

"Marco, down here!" Hissed a voice from below me. I looked down to a sewer grate against a curb to see King River.

I knelt down. "River, what are you doing down there?"

"Marco, it was terrible," he replied, voice strained, "Moon returned, and burst in, telling the castle to evacuate. Before she could explain, Star burst in, but something terrible has happened to her."

Finn knelt down next to her. "Yup, she's been possessed by the Lich. We're gonna go punch him out of her."

River sighed. "I knew her horn headband looked sinister today."

Finn and I exchanged glances and both decided on not telling River that it wasn't a headband.

"They began fighting," he continued, "and I got as many of the people I could into the sewers. But some...some were completely vaporized by Star..."

"That thing is NOT Star!" I insisted.

"He's right, it's an undead incarnation of evil inhabiting your daughter's body." Finn added. River began to sob, and I gave Finn a dirty look, prompting him to hurriedly say, "But like I said, we're going to free her! Which way did they go?"

"They were going to the magic sanctuary," River replied, "I believe Moon said she was going to use the spring to cleanse whatever was plaguing Star's soul."

"That...might actually work." I replied.

Finn shook his head. "No... taking Lich to the source of anything good just tends to result in him corrupting it. We gotta hurry!"

"To the woods!" I shouted pointing towards the forest, "River, stay here and keep the rest of the mewmans safe!"

"Good luck Marco!" He waved from the sewer grate as we ran off. Jake scooped us all off and turned giant, this time putting me up front on his back since I knew Mewni. I scanned the top of the forest until I saw the sanctuary over the horizon. The tracker Bubblegum made started making all sorts of noises, and Finn silenced it.

"There!" I pointed. As if on cue, blasts of magic game shooting from the sanctuary, firing all over the air, including one that came through the trees and took out one of Jake's legs, sending the four of us toppling into the forest.

I lucked out in landing in a bush. "Ugh...are you guys okay?"

I stepped out into a clearing, and Huntress Wizard leapt down from a tree, right in front of me, prompting me to jump back and scream.

She laughed. "You scream just like Finn does when I do that."

A yellow hand stretched from my right to tap Huntress Wizard on her right shoulder. As she looked, Finn and Jake jumped out from her left, yelling, "WAH!" She gasped and fell on her butt.

"Hahaha! Finally got you back!" Finn gloated.

She smiled and brushed herself off. "Alright, you got me."

I groaned. "Focus guys, they're fighting like, right there! What do we do?!"

"Actually, M-dude, I've got a plan!" Finn said, bringing us all in for a huddle.  
____________________________________________________________________________________  
Marco and I stood outside the sanctuary.

"How sure are you about this plan, on a scale of 1 to 100, Finn?" Marco asked in a hushed voice.

"Well, I don't lie to homies, so if I'm being honest," I whispered, "like a 42."

"Well..." he replied, clenching his fist, "guess that's all we got."

"That's the only attitude to have," I assured him, "bust out those scissors, home boy. We got this."

We peeked around wall into the door. I recognized Star and her Mom, but then there was this weird guy with a diamond for a head and snakes for hands shooting crystals at Star.

"Who's the weirdo with no face?" I asked.

"That's Rhombulus, part of the Magic High Commission!" Marco whispered. "I think he's trying to trap Star! Yes! Look!"

I squinted, and this Rhombulus guy shot a beam from his head that hit Star, and she quickly became encased in a clear crystal. It crashed to the ground with a thud.

"They did -mmf!" Marco began to say, but I put my hand over his mouth and shushed him.

"Look..." I pointed. "This is just like when I saw the Lich imprisoned in the Crystal Citadel. It's a space prison."

From Star's eyes, a dark green, rotting goo started dripping, dissolving the crystal around her. Before the queen and Rhombulus could react, The Lich burst from the crystal,and flew to Rhombulus with some crazy super speed. "Fight." The Lich commanded.

Rhombulus' head turned a sickly green color, and he turned to the queen and began blasting at her.

"Oh dang, man!" I whispered, and began fidgeting with the settings on my robo-arm. "So are those like, magic diamonds?"

"Yeah, probably. What do we do?" Marco asked.

I showed him the setting I picked on my arm: diamond cutter. "We stick to the plan; watch for me to grab the Lich."

My fingers turned into a buzzaw and began hissing. "I'll take care of Rhombulus."

Marco nodded, and I charged the room, just as the Lich was beginning to look for an exit.

I let my most voice crackling war-cry, causing everyone in the room to turn. I leapt into the air and shoved my feet into Rhombulus' stomach, knocking him down. "Keep the Lich busy, your majesty!" I yelled.

Queen Moon looked shocked to see me, but she didn't delay at blasting back at the Lich, and the two of them took to the sky. It was just then I noticed that one of Rhombulus' snake hands were snapping at my feet, so I kicked it across the jaw and hollered, "HANDS OFF THE MERCHANDISE, NERD!"

Rhombulus flipped back to his feet and shot crystals at me, but I was able to slice through them with my diamond cutter, close the gap, and strike him in the head with my cutter. His head cracked slightly, but one of his snake arms had bit me in the side, and he easily hoisted me off the ground and threw me across the chamber.

I skidded across the floor and realized that maybe rating his plan a 42 was a little generous. But I looked up to see that the crack on Rhombulus' head was leaking, and his head was looking more like the normal color. I rolled out of the way of more crystals, and leapt over his crystalizing beam. I just needed to open up that crack a little bit more without killing him.

"Is that all you got?! Some rocks and snakes? I was punching witches tougher than you when I was a baby!" I taunted Rhombulus. He shot his crystalizing beam again, and I switched my arm to it's mirror setting. Thankfully this actually worked, and I was able to shoot the beam back at his feet, freezing him in place. "Diamond cutter!" I commanded my arm, charging, and in a sweet, leaping flip, I dug the cutter a bit deeper in the crack on his head, causing all of the Lich's corrupting goop out to leak out of there, and Rhombulus slumped over. He let out a groan that let me know he was still alive.

"Yuss!" I pumped my arms and turned to see Moon and Star still blasting at each other along the sanctuary. "Hmm..."

I looked at the large fountain in the center of the sanctuary. Guess that was my only way up. "Grappling hook!" I told my arm, and launched a hook to the top of the fountain. I flipped myself onto the top, watching the air battle. I looked at the entrance, and saw Marco peek out.

Alright, only one shot, Finn. Moon was close to the fountain, and the Lich dived.

Now.

I jumped from the fountain, landing on Lich's back, and latched my left arm around his - er, Star's throat. I shot my grappling hook down at the ground. But before my arm hit the ground, a portal opened up, cut by Marco. Lich and I hurtled through the hole, and I slammed the Lich, head-first, into the side of the tree my hook landed in. Stunned, Lich fell to the ground, and I rolled out of the way.

Phase 2.

The tree - which was Huntress Wizard, turned back to normal, and used eight magic arrows to pin Star's butterfly wings to the ground. The Lich roared in pain and struggled to get free, but by then, H.W. and I had scattered, which led to Phase 3.

Jake leapt from a nearby tree, and in mid air grew to the largest I had ever seen him, and smashed a gigantic, huge, massive foot down onto the Lich, shaking the ground in a massive stomp.

From beneath his foot, the green vapors of the Lich leaked out into the air, dissipating...but I heard the Lich laugh as he vanished.

The laugh sent shivers down my spine.

"Finn!" I heard Marco yell, running over as Jake shrunk down and stepped off Star. "Was that gas the Lich? Did it work?"

"I think so," I replied, as we ran over to examine her. She was pretty banged up, so I took a vial of Cyclops goop, "Let's just fix her up."

As I was digging through my pack, Queen Moon flew over, shock and surprise all over her face. But then she took a look at Marco's dimensional scissors and sighed, "I keep forgetting you have those."

I dumped the tears. Within an instant, Star opened her eyes, wide and shocked. "Finn?" She asked.

"Sup." I said with a small wave.

She looked around and sprang up, wrapping her arms around Marco. "Thank you..." She said, quietly.

Way different from her normal attitude, but, an encounter with the Lich will donk your brainscape.

Marco hugged her back back tightly. "It was Finn's plan. All I did was open a portal." Still, Star held him more tightly.

They're kinda cute together. I'm rooting for them.

I turned to Huntress Wizard. "Are you okay? Getting grappling hooked probably didn't feel great."

She just smiled and ruffled my hat. "Tree me is pretty resilient. You did good, hot buns."

"Hey, what about me?" Jake huffed.

I laughed and gave him a fist pound. "You brought the whole thing home, bro.

Star let go of Marco and hugged her mom. "I'm so sorry...I never wanted to hurt you. Or any of the people."

Far from her harsh tone, Moon said, gently, "It's not your fault, Star..."

Marco looked over to me, and I gave him a thumbs up. He smiled back. I turned to the Queen and cleared my throat. "I don't want to damp on these good time vibes, but I'm pretty sure the Lich is still out there. As his gross...soul gas or whatever left, it let out an evil laugh. I don't think we're in the clear."

Moon rubbed her chin. "It's never that simple, is it?" She sighed. "With my magic, I can restore the castle. Stay here tonight, and we can plan our course of action tomorrow. I owe you an apology, Finn. And you, Marco. I should have trusted you to help."

Star went back and hugged Marco again. "Uh, yeah mom. You know by now Marco kicks almost as much butt as I do."

Marco blushed. "I mean, almost."

"Group hug!" Jake called, stretching his arms around ALL of us and pulled us in tight for a squeeze.

"Oh my..." the queen muttered.

Star, however, laughed. "Jake, you're my kind of dog."

I laughed too. "Alright, ya ham, put us down and take us back to the kingdom."

Jake stretched himself really long, and looked to the Queen. "Here, your majesty, you can have the best...SEAT in the house."

He turned his butt into a throne, prompting all of us except the Queen to laugh as she sat awkwardly on Jake's throne-butt.

As we rode back to the kingdom, I couldn't help but wonder what the Lich was planning now. Or, knowing him...

...was this all part of his plan?

I hope you all enjoyed!


	4. Not From Around Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lich may have been purged from Star, but there is fallout to deal with as far as the Magical High Commission is concerned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: It's ya boi, Nick. I own nothing.

I would never openly say this to Huntress Wizard, but it was pretty apparent magic users on Mewni are way more powerful than the ones on Ooo. Or, at the least, Star and her mom were. It only took some waves of her hand for Moon to rebuild the castle and kingdom. While the King burst forth from the sewers to greet them with open arms, the people fled, or cowered in whispers, pointing at Star.

Star took it pretty hard. She looked on the verge of tears. I wondered if that was how Fern felt, back when he was still the Finn sword, and Bandit Princess used him to commit evil deeds; a helpless instrument of someone else's destruction. As we walked past the scared townsfolk, Marco kept a hand on her back. A small gesture, but one I'm sure she appreciated.

As we entered the castle and approached the throne room, Queen Moon stopped us. "While I am exceedingly grateful to the four of you, I'd like to speak to my daughter alone about everything that happened."

On instinct, we all looked at Star, who gave Marco a small smile and said, "It's cool guys, I'll catch up with you later."

"Right on, I'll show you guys around," Marco replied, turning to us.

As he gave us the grand Mewni tour, it became really clear things on Mewni and Ooo were really different. There was like, one science lab here, and they had no research at all on raising the dead. And while Ooo was crawling with Wizards and Witches, Star's family were really the only magic users around.

They also seemed to eat way more corn.

"You guys have all this corn and you never even made people out of it?" Jake asked. "You could make real life Husker Knights."

"What are Husker Knights?" Marco asked.

Before Jake could go into a whole rant about Card Wars, I flatly answered, "Don't ask."

As we passed a garden window, Huntress Wizard pointed and asked, "Can I sleep out there? Sleeping inside is weird to me. I like feeling the nature on my bod."

I heard Jake mumble, "Or Finn," and I did my best not to turn bright red. She, however, just grinned and shrugged, which made my blushing worse.

Marco watched the whole thing and was stifling a laugh. "I mean, I guess, but don't you stay with these guys a lot?"

"That doesn't count, it's in a tree. Still nature." She replied, matter-of-factly.

Jake opened his mouth to make another jab at me, but I quickly blurted out, "But Marco, where is your room?"

Jake smirked at getting under my skin. Brothers, man.

"Oh yeah, follow me, I'll show you." Marco said excitedly, rushing off down a hallway. We came to the door, and seven super tiny puppies came bursting out.

"Aw! So squish!" I cooed, picking one up and petting it. A laser beam came out of its eye though, stinging my meat arm. "Ow!" I cried, accidentally dropping it into its pile of siblings.

"Yes! More magic dogs!" Jake cheered as the puppies began climbing all over him, "I shall rule over them as a king!"

Huntress Wizard knelt down and pet one behind the ear, "I bet with some training, this one could make a good hunting hound."

Marco laughed. "They're not for sale, but maybe Star could make one for you and Finn."

We spent most of the afternoon playing with the puppies, and we exchanged adventure stories.

"…and then the War Elephant threw me inside Darren's head to stab its brain seed. It was AWESOME!" I explained, before adding, "And then I made the Guac for the Candy Kingdom celebration. I make crazy good guac."

Huntress Wizard and Jake nodded. "I could mow on Finn's guac for days." H.W. said.

"MARCO! MARCO DIAZ!" Came a familiar voice, as Star rounded a corner and barreled toward us.

"Sup?" Marco asked, with a small wave.

"There you guys are!" She sighed, catching her breath. "I've been looking all over for you!"

"…and you didn't start with my room?" He asked, surprised. "We've been here for like an hour."

"I'm their king now," Jake added, pointing to the laser puppies sleeping on his head.

"Awwwww, so cute!" Star said, before snapping back over to Marco. "We forgot Rhombulus and mom is trying to get the Magical High Commission together."

Marco and I inhaled sharply and made nervous eye contact.

"You know what, I totally forgot about that." I admitted, "That one's on me."

"I can't believe we just left him there!" Marco groaned. "That's so dumb of me!"

Marco opened up a portal with dimensional scissors, and I had Jake go in and carry Rhombulus back to the castle.

"You fought this guy with snake hands, and you didn't even tell me?!" Jake exclaimed as he climbed back in. "What the junk, Finn?!"

Huntress Wizard pinched my cheeks as I turned red, "Good job, you exceptional beast, you."

"I can't believe he totally slipped my mind. Your fight with him was so awesome!" Marco said, throwing his hands in the air.

"Thanks. But uh...he's going to be okay, right?" I asked.

"Uhhhhhhh..." Star replied, "I'm sure he'll be fine."

She didn't sound sure.

"He's probably had worse." She added.

"No he hasn't." Replied one of us his hands, making us all jump. Huntress Wizard pointed some arrows at it.

"H-Dubs, no." I said, gently pushing her hands down.

"Just get him to the queen," groaned the other snake hand.

Jake carrying him, Star led us back to the throne room. Waiting for us was the Queen, King, a girl with bright orange hair and a flame over her head, and a weird skull-head guy in a starry orb. He kinda looked like a snow globe I'd find in the Nightosphere.

"Rhombulus!" The skull head exclaimed.

"Oh dang, he got really messed up." The girl answered.

"Yes," sighed Moon. "The creature called the Lich corrupted Rhombulus and turned him against me. The one in blue - Finn - he was able to stop the corruption and defeat Rhombulus."

I waved. "Sup?"

The girl stood. "So you admit to it?"

"To...winning my fight with him?" I asked.

I noticed the Queen was looking rather upset. "Hekapoo..."

I stifled a laugh. It's a funny name, but it didn't seem like a good time to laugh.

Jake and Huntress Wizard laughed though, and I couldn't help but chuckle a bit.

The flame on her head grew huge. Not really anything compared to Flame Princess.

"Are you laughing at my name during your SENTENCING?!" Hekapoo erupted.

"Sentencing?!" I yelped.

"WHAT?!" Marco yelled.

Star was livid. "Hekapoo, you have to be kidding me! Finn literally saved my Mom and is the reason we were able to beat the Lich."

"Wait, am I like, for reals in trouble right now?" I panicked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some arrows floating around Huntress Wizard's shoulders in anger. "Babe, not now..." I whispered. She noticed they were floating around and put them away.

"Hekapoo, I urge you to reconsider," Queen Moon argued, "Finn has been nothing but a monumental help to myself and the princess."

The skull head sighed. "While I agree, it is considered a high crime to assault a member of the Magical High Commission with murderous intent. And that's a nasty headcrack."

"But I specifically tried NOT to kill him!" I yelled, grabbed the sides my hat in frustration, "The crack was the only thing letting the Lich's influence drain out!"

"Finn has come from Ooo in a selfless effort to protect your kingdom from The Lich!" Huntress Wizard argued, "And your kingdom was in flames when we got here. And where were you?"

"Yeah, we did all the heavy lifting for you!" Jake barked. "Heck, I'M STILL HOLDING RHOMBULUS FOR YOU You should be ashamed!"

"Mom," Star added, "They're right. We don't have time to punish my friends with bureaucratic nonsense!"

"Hekapoo, you're better than this." Marco sighed.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Moon yelled, quieting the room. "High crimes are determined by the Counsel, which, as you can see, with Rhombulus gone, is myself, Hekapoo, and Omnitraxus Prime."

"You could heal Rhombulus and ask him." Star argued, defiantly. "Trust me. Being possessed sucks. I'm sure he'll be glad to be free of The Lich too."

"The spring got damaged while you guys were fighting, so it's going to take weeks for him to heal." Hekapoo argued. "If time is of the essence, then I suggest we punish the human with the Trial of Hekapoo."

"What's that?" I asked, sighing. I couldn't believe this was happening.

"You will be transported to my pocket dimension where time passes more slowly, until you can extinguish the flames of 100 of my clones." Hekapoo explained.

"Wait, what?!" Marco yelled. "That's a CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT? You put me through a criminal punishment over a stupid pair of scissors?!"

Hekapoo shrugged. "I was bored."

"If you're making Finn do something this donkus, I'm going with him." Jake grumbled.

"Me too. Also, I kinda just don't like you." Huntress Wizard added.

"You guys don't have to do that..." I muttered, but they were already standing next to me.

"You can't seriously let her do this mom, this is ridiculous!" Star said, stomping.

The queen shook her head. "I'm sorry, Star. And I'm sorry Finn. But my hands are tied."

"Hecks to you, Hekapoo, I ain't afraid of your trial." I huffed. She took out a pair of the scissors that Marco had been using, and opened an orange portal.

"After you, criminal scum." She said, teasingly.

Jake, Huntress Wizard and I marched into the portal find ourselves in an open field.

"I mean, this isn't too bad." Jake observed, "Nicer than that time we got thrown in Wizard Jail."

Hekapoo appeared before us. "To give you a taste of what you're in store for, I'll start you off on just one clone. The only rule is that you have to blow out the flame on top of my head. Now go!"

Before any of us could move, she took off running at some intense speeds, disappearing about one hundred feet away.

"Nevermind, this is like, real dumb." Jake sighed.

Huntress Wizard's antlers twitched. "Hun, tilt your head to the right, she's coming up behind you."

I did so, just barely avoiding getting dope-slapped on the back of my dome as Hekapoo zipped past me. "Jake, I don't think she knows about your powers."

"Haha, nope!" Jake exclaimed, stretching his arm out, wrapping it around Hekapoo, trapping her, and hoisting her through the air to my mouth.

"Wait what?!" She shrieked as I gently blew out her head flame.

The clone disappeared, and Hekapoo stepped in front of us through another portal, closing it behind her. She clenched her teeth and glared at us.

"Hey, no need to be a hothead." I said with a wink, causing Jake and Huntress Wizard to giggle.

"Fine," she seethed, "That was the warm up. All the clones now."

In the blink of an eye,she had made the other ninety-eight clones of herself. "You'll never catch all of us."

She took out a pair of scissors to cut a portal, but before she could, Huntress Wizard abruptly declared, "Nope," and shot a magic arrow at the pair, knocking them out of her hands.

Hekapoo turned slowly to face Huntress Wizard. "You did NOT just do that."

Hekapoo materialized another pair of scissors, but before she could even start opening a portal, Huntress Wizard knocked them out of her hands with an arrow again, repeating, "Nope."

"You're cheating!" Hekapoo yelled.

"No, you said the only rule was to blow out your flame." H.W. shrugged. "I'm within my - Nope - rights."

The, "Nope," was her knocking yet another pair of scissors out of Hekapoo's hands.

I smiled. "Jake, round 'em up, boiiiiii."

Jake took a deep breath, much to Hekapoo's confusion, but then he shot ninety-nine arms out of his body, each one grabbing a Hekapoo, and held them up in a big cluster above his head before they could get away. Then he took another deep breath, grew his head about fifty times his size, and blew all the flames out at once. All the clones disappeared, leaving the original Hekapoo to fall on her butt in front of us.

"Did...did you just...?" She stuttered out.

"Yup, we beat your trial. Now take us back." Huntress Wizard answered with a smirk.

Wide-eyed, Hekapoo grabbed her discarded scissors, and cut a portal into the air. "Just...just get out."

The three of us walked back into the throne room, laughing.

"Did you forget something?" The queen asked as Hekapoo followed behind us.

"They beat it." She grumbled.

"Already?!" Marco asked in shock.

"Yeah, how long were we gone?" I asked.

"Seven long, merciless seconds." Star replied, sounding like she was enjoying that we were sticking it to Hekapoo as well.

"Yessssss," I pumped my arms in victory. "Oh. I am sorry about your friend though. I didn't really have any alternatives."

"I know." Star said, flatly, "I was there."

"Oh. Right."

"That's enough, all of you," the queen said, though she was smirking too, "I implore all of you; go eat and get some sleep; we have to plan our next moves in the morning."

"Yeah, we fought the Lich twice today, I'm kind of dead tired." Marco agreed, stretching.

"FOOOOOD!" Jake sang, happily cartwheeling out of the throne room.

"We should probably make sure he doesn't bring the castle down again," Huntress Wizard said to me with a smirk.

"Hey, what did your Mom want to talk to you about when you were alone, anyway?' Marco asked Star.

"Oh, just to fill her in on what happened with Meteora and...you know, about being possessed." Star replied.

I could tell her voice fell. I wondered if she was still messed up from what she saw, but was trying not to let it show.

The night went on without any other major incident, other than Hekapoo avoiding eye contact with any of us. I kept an eye on Star though. She seemed alright, but every now and then she'd just stare off into nothing. Marco seemed pretty concerned too.

But once we finished dinner, I felt a tug at my sleeve; it was Huntress Wizard. "What's up, hun?" I asked.

"It's a really nice night," She started, wistfully, "could I convince you to camp out in the garden with me?"

I smirked. "I mean, duh. You don't have to convince me. Of course I will."

She smirked back. "Because we both know you're totally in love with me."

"It was the elk hearts," I teased, "they won me over."

She blushed, "They're an acquired taste!"

We played a weird board game about slides and stairs with Marco and Star after dinner, and then decided to head to bed.

Huntress Wizard - or Artemis, as I call her when it's just me and her - was right, the night was beautiful. From the central garden, we laid on a patch of grass looking directly through a clearing of trees into the starry sky. Even more awesome was that the star's on Mewni were different colors, if you looked closely enough.

"What a day, right?" Artemis asked, rolling to her side and propping herself up on an elbow.

"Tell me about it," I sighed, "Two fights with the Lich, a trial, a new dimension. That's a bonkers amount of stuff, even for us."

"Yeah," she agreed, "How are you holding up?"

"I mean, I'm a little banged up, but -"

She cut me off, "That's not what I mean, Finn. Come on, I know you better than that."

Oh dang. She got me.

"You lost one of your best friends, and a niece," Artemis said, gently rubbing my chest. "And you've buried yourself in work as a distraction. You haven't rested once today."

"That's probably why I'm so pooped," I replied jokingly. But she was right. "I dunno, H Dubs. I always thought Marceline would always be there. I mean, being an ageless vampire demon. I can't really wrap my head around her being gone, not being able to play pranks with her or go to her for advice or whatever. I don't think I told you, either, but Peebs has her ashes in the lab."

"What?" She said, surprised, "That's kinda creepy."

"I mean, she has a decorpsinator serum," I said, "but it only has ever worked on candy people. I'm sure she's trying to find a way to bring her back, you know? But I don't want to ask."

"Why?"

I closed my eyes. "I'm afraid she won't be able to."

I turned and looked at her again, "And I also realized, I've been a bunk uncle. I'm a Bunkle."

Artemis giggled. "I don't think you're a bunkle."

"I never really spent any time with the pups without Jake, though," I sighed. "Or even with Jake. And then I feel bad about feeling bad because I know Jake's doing the same thing I'm doing, just working to cope with everything, but it's like, one million times worse for him. And same for Peebs and Marcy. They're crazy for each other. And if Prubs can't bring her back, I don't know what's going to happen."

"It's a good thing you have me here to worry about you, hun," Artemis said, with one of those sad-time smiles, "because you're always worrying about everyone else. But...that's one of the things I like about you. Whatever happens there is in Bubblegum's hands. And you can't change the past with the puppies. And I know it's weird because they're basically older than you now, but I think maybe all you can do is try and spend more time with the family you do have."

I pulled her close and smiled. "Maybe I should just go live in the woods with you, because you're way smart. You're right, as always, Artemis."

She kissed me. "One of us has to be, right? Besides, first we need to stop the Lich, or this stuff won't matter."

"Right," I yawned, rolling onto my back, eyes shutting.

After a few moments of silence, I heard her again as I was drifting off to sleep, "Hey, Finn?"

"What's up, buttercup?"

"Would you...would you ever consider really living with me?" She asked, quietly.

My eyes shot open, and I rolled back to her. "I...do you want me to?"

She looked to the sky. "I care about you Finn. I know raw elk hearts aren't your thing, but...I gave that to you because you mean a lot to me. I love having you around. So...yeah. I would like that. That's not to say there's nothing wrong with your tree house. But I thought maybe it could be...just...us."

I'd never seen her this red before. It was adorable. I smiled to her. "Let's do it."

She curled up against me. "Awesome. Goodnight, my beau."

"Goodnight, Huntress Wizard." I said, yawning again, and staring up at the sky.

First stop, killing the Lich. Next stop, living with my rad girlfriend. Life sure is weird.

But weird ain't always bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Review if you enjoyed, or provide constructive criticism if not.
> 
> This chapter was written completely in Finn's perspective to give his grasp on the foreign land of Mewni. The next chapter will have more back and forth perspective changes.


	5. Grab Your Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the next step in the Lich's plans become clear, a favor is asked of Star's family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing, except the plot of this story. The plot is my brain baby.

\---  
Marco's Point of View  
\---  
I woke in a cold sweat. It was just a nightmare, but it just happened earlier today.

My mind kept replaying the goat horns bursting from Star's head, and watching her pummel Finn senselessly with her arms. The terror in her voice as we momentarily broke the Lich's hold on her.

"Maybe one day you'll get a good night's sleep again, Diaz," I sighed.

After Finn and Huntress Wizard left to get some sleep, Jake decided to hit the guest room to pass out too. I asked Star if she wanted to talk, but she pushed me away and said she needed to call Tom and tell him about what happened. She wouldn't even look me in the eyes. Things were really weird between us still. But, Finn had been right, just keep being me, and things will sort themselves out. I hope.

And we still had to find The Lich. I still think he's going for the wand. Which, is with Eclipsa. Who is...who knows where. Maybe Star can find her with the All Seeing Eye? I guess there's no use worrying about it this very second.

I checked my phone. Two in the morning. Ugh. I needed more sleep than this. Maybe a walk will clear my head.

I'd done this a few times before; the castle was a really peaceful place late at night. I looked out the window to my right into the garden to see Finn spooning a log. Oh wait, that's got to be what he was talking about, Huntress Wizard must actually turn into a log. Why were they covered in leaves though? Actually, you know what, I don't think I want to know. I've seen too much.

"Marco..." A voice was whispering to me from down the hall. It was low and ominous.

"Ooooooh no." I said to myself. "Creepy whispering voices at night? No thanks, I've had enough weird stuff."

I turned to go back to my room, but as I turned, the Lich was right behind me, breathing his green gas into me.

"MARCO!"

I sat up in my bed. Ugh, a nightmare within my nightmare? Give me a break. But that felt so real...

"Marco!" I looked up. Star was in my room, yelling for me.

"Star?" I asked, rubbing my eyes. I checked my phone. Two in the morning...still. "What's up?"

"Did you just have a craaaazy dream where the Lich snuck up on you?" She asked, twitching.

"Yeah, actually," I replied. "What do you think it means?"

"He's coming for us, Marco," Star said, quietly. "And soon."

"We can't catch a break, can we?" I sighed. I placed a hand on her shoulder, "Should we wake everyone up?"

She shook her head. "No...let them sleep. Did you see Finn spooning his log girlfriend? I don't want to ruin that. Let him hug his log. It's adorable. Tomorrow's gonna suck as it is."

"Alright. You're the princess." I replied. "How did your talk with Tom go?"

She looked away. "Not great...Marco, why didn't you tell me Tom knew about our kiss?"

OOPS. Good job, Diaz. A+ work.

"I uh...didn't get much time to really think about it. You sleep portaled us to Ooo and we've been going nonstop ever since," I admitted, sheepishly. "When it was just me and him against Meteora, we both wanted to sacrifice ourselves so the other could try and find you. And I didn't want either of us to die keeping that secret from him. You...know how I feel about you, but Tom's still my friend."

Star sat on my bed and brought her knees up to her chest. "I understand. It was just really frustrating. I told him all about being possessed and what I did...and then he asked about our kiss. It's like he was just waiting for me to stop talking so he could ask."

"I'm sure it's been on his mind all day," I said in defense of my friend, but admitted, "that is kind of rude though. What did you say?"

"I just told him we could talk about it after all this stuff with the Lich was over." She sighed. "I mean, I know we NEED to talk, but I have a kingdom to defend and an undead monster to fight and weird new friends from another dimension. And being possessed was...really something bad. I just needed the support."

I smiled. "Couldn't tell you what it's like to have weird new friends from another dimension."

She punched my shoulder. "You dork, squire's shouldn't back sass princesses."

"Good thing I'm your friend, too." I replied, shrugging.

Star's smiled faded and she looked away. "Marco...I keep...thinking about the people I killed."

I frowned and pulled her in for a hug. "That wasn't you Star. It's not your fault."

"I know that, Marco," she said, voice strained, "but I saw them with my own eyes and zapped them with my own hands. I saw the fear in their eyes. And now everyone's afraid of me. That's not the kind of ruler I want to be!"

"Hey," I tightened my grip on her, "You're not going to be that type of ruler. You're going to rule Mewni Star-style, not Lich-style or Moon-style. You can win the people back."

I pulled away and smiled, adding, "And not everyone's afraid of you. I'm not. I could never be."

She smiled back. "Thanks Marco. You always know how to cheer me up."

"Nah," I replied, "I just kind of wing it. And usually I just cheer you up with nachos."

"You should make me nachos!" Star said, hopping off the bed. "I can't get back to sleep right away without nachos!"

"In the middle of the night?" I asked.

Star cleared her throat and puffed her chest. "As princess of this kingdom, I declare it the PERFECT time for feel-better-nachos."

"I guess I can't argue with that," I smirked.

We hit the hallways, walking past the garden window. True to the dream, Finn and his log girlfriend were there, covered in leaves. Star went red. "Oh dang."

"What?" I asked, looking out.

"Is he...naked under there?" She asked, looking away.

I kept walking, "You know what, probably not our business."

She blocked the view of the window with her hair and caught up with me, "Yeah, someone else can deal with that in the morning."

She elbowed me in the ribs and joked, "At least she turns into a tree and doesn't drag Finn off to other worlds, right?"

I laughed. "I don't know, adventures might be better than splinters. Besides, I like our adventures."

"Me too," she smiled, "although I could do without dragging an undead spirit of destruction back to Mewni, but you know what they say, beggars can't be choosers."

We reached the royal kitchen, devoid of any workers this late at night, so I helped myself to the corn chips, and all the proper fixings for Marco's Super Awesome Nachos. As I got to work, I noticed Star was looking at me kind of funny. "You okay there?"

She shook her head. "Yeah, sorry, just have had a lot on my mind."

"The Lich stuff still?"I asked.

"That," she sighed, "and between being possessed and seeing you lose your soul to Meteora, that's twice in like a week I thought I'd lost everything. Lost you."

I'm glad I wasn't facing her, but she probably knew how red I was turning.

"And I know things got weird, and I'm really confused by everything, but I want you to know I care about you Marco. No matter what happens tomorrow." Star finished.

"I uh...I care about you too, Star. I know that. Don't worry." I answered, putting the nachos in the oven.

"I care about you kids too." Came a voice from the fridge, making us jump. We turned to see Jake was there, making a sandwich. "I mean I don't really know you so probably not nearly as much as you two crazy kids do," he continued, "but you seem pretty cool and you've fed me pretty good today, so you're good in my book."

"I uh, ah...th-thanks Jake." Star said, blushing intensely, "Glad to make friends with such a cute, awesome stretchy dog!"

Jake took a big bite of his sandwich and paused. "Oh wait, did you guys not see me in here?"

"N-no." I replied, wishing I was wearing my hoodie so I could hide in it.

"Hahahahaha!" Jake laughed, wiping his eyes with the sandwich and taking another bite, "Oh dude, I totally interrupted you guys having a moment. I'm so bad at that. Sorry. Hey, can I have some nachos?"

"Late night nacho party!" Star exclaimed. "Nachos for the three of us!"

I laughed, and the oven dinged, signaling the start of our so-called party.

"Hey, you guys want to hear embarrassing baby stories about Finn? I got pictures in my phone!" Jake asked with a mouth full of chips and cheese.

Star propped her elbows on the table. "Do I ever!"

I laughed. "That sounds fun, tell us!"

\---  
Finn's Point of View  
\---

I woke up naked in a bed of leaves.

Dang it, I gotta stop doing that in public. I scrambled to put my clothes on without getting out of the leaf pile.

Artemis was gone, but she woke up really early every day to go for a breakfast hunt. Sometimes she brought me back something, but I usually cooked it. She could go either way as far as eating things raw or cooked. She said that was forest living, but I think part of it is that she doesn't know how to cook. She always loves it when I cook for her.

I left the garden and walked into the hallway, only to be greeted by Jake. "Good morning, little bro!"

I ruffled his head. "Hey Jake, you're up early for you."

"You know I wouldn't be late for a royal breakfast, Finn," Jake said, pointing at me, "royal breakfast is the most important meal of the day, even moreso than the normal breakfast I'm going to have in an hour."

"Then we better go eat break-FAST, my brother." I replied with a fist pound.

"Finn, you make too many dad jokes," Jake grumbled.

"Ain't no bad joke like a dad joke, Jake." I trumpeted.

As we walked into the feasting hall, we were greeted by some panicky knights, the two magical high commission people we met yesterday - Hekapoo and Omni...something - Rhombulus except his head was wrapped in bandages, and our friends. We sat down next to Star, and I asked, "What's the haps with all dem knights flipping out?"

"Weeeeellllllll..." She began nervously. "It all started last night when we were eating late night nachos - I call them late night-chos."

"Nice, I like it." I said. I held up a fist for a pound, but she shook my fist instead. Whatevs.

"Thanks! So anyway, we noticed this rumbling in the distance, so we all ran out to the window, and we saw that." Star explained, pointing to a window beyond the hall that was just above standing height.

Jake stretched me up to the window, and I couldn't help but yell, "WHAT THE TRANCH?!"

At the edge of the kingdom, a giant red monster was pounding on the edge of a magic barrier, screaming incoherently.

"Man, this place just can't catch a break!" I exclaimed, sitting back next to Star, "What the heck is that nasty crud-boy?"

Before she could answer, a little blue man floated up to us. Like, floated above the table. It was kinda weird, but he answered my question, "That, my bear-hatted friend, is Globgor!"

I blinked. "Um. Thanks, tiny pixie man."

Whoever this was glared at me and floated away. Marco burst out laughing. "I can't believe you just called Glossaryck a pixie man!"

"Dude, I've told you a thousand time to stop assuming magical species!" Jake scolded, "Every time you mix up gnomes and dwarves, they make us fight them."

"I don't do it on purpose, Jake!" I replied. It's true; I'm just always mixing it up. I'm not trying to upset anyone. "So what's the deal with Globgor?"

"So I told you about my not- grandma Eclipsa? The one I gave my wand to?" Star asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, when Marco was sleeping on the couch back in our treehouse."

"Soooooooo, she had been imprisoned for running off with a monster and abandoning the throne...and wellllllllll, it turns out Rhombulus had frozen him in a crystal a long, long time ago. So it appears Eclipsa used my wand to free him, and now he's here." Star explained. "Maybe for revenge? I dunno. I suggested we just go to the barrier and ask what he wants but noooooooo, we gotta wait for my mom." She crossed her arms and sighed. "I reunite with her yesterday, and I'm already sick of her. Moms, right?"

"Yeah," Marco sighed, "moms can be a pain."

I nodded. "My mom is one hundred robo clones controlled by her computer brain, and she tried to upload me and her entire island to the internet. It was wacky. But we worked it out. I mean, they're people, right? She's actually pretty cool."

Marco laughed and smiled. "Yeah, I guess. I don't know what I'd do without my mom."

Star looked a bit conflicted. She must have some mommy issues. Kinda like when I wanted to steal Martin's arm.

The doors opened, and the king and queen made their entrance into the feasting hall. All the ruckus died down as the two made their way to their seats.

The queen sighed, looking rather aggravated. "Any suggestions on what to do about Globgor?"

"Let's. Just. Go. Ask him." Star replied, loudly.

"We could just have Rhombulus go freeze him - OH WAIT. THE DORK WITH THE HAT MESSED HIM UP." Hekapoo interjected.

I drank some coffee and looked to the side. Not even gonna touch that one. Jake glared at her hardcore, though.

"You make me sick." He grumbled to her.

Woof. What a mess.

"I'm with Star. I mean, he can't get in, why can't we just ask?" Marco added.

"Kids, Globgor is bad news." Moon explained. "He was spreading Monster revolution decades before Toffee, and I doubt he wants to talk when he's been frozen for - WHAT ON MEWNI ARE YOU DOING?!"

I looked over to the door and inhaled sharply. Huntress Wizard was standing in the doorway, eyes shifting in confusion. She also had a dead squirrel hanging in her mouth. She saw me and waved, happily, pointing at the dead squirrel in triumph. I waved, frantically, pointing at my mouth and shaking my head to signal she had forgotten her manners.

She squinted at me, confused, and looked at all the shocked and appalled looks on everyone's faces. Except King River, who exclaimed, "HO HO, GOOD HUNT, LASS."

Her eyes widened, and she took the squirrel out of her mouth. "Oh. Oh Glob, this is like, super rude, isn't it? Is it not cool for me to bring outside food for breakfast? I'll just uh...I'll take this outside."

She walked backwards from the room and shifted down the hallway. But then she peaked her head around the corner and back into the room. "Oh, Star, the big weird guy outside is all freaked out. Said he wanted to talk to you about an eclipse? And your wand? I don't know, I had a squirrel in my mouth, was hard to hear."

"Whelp, that does it!" Star said, standing up abruptly, flinging her chair against the wall, grabbing Marco's hand, and pulling him to the door.

"Eat it, Hekapoo!" I yelled, shoving the rest of my food down my face.

Jake grabbed the rest of his food in the same manner, and then grew five hands to grab Hekapoo and a few other people's plates of foods too, expanding his mouth to eat it all, and then the two of us ran off after Marco and Star, grabbing Artemis on the way. She had just finished her squirrel.

"What was that intense scene all about?" Huntress Wizard asked.

"They were talking about the big guy. Star wanted to just go ask him. Apparently you were just the kick Star needed," I explained as we all ran out of the front gate.

"Well, I feel better about only finding one lousy squirrel out there." She replied.

"Yeah, my dad pretty much hunts the forest dry," Star replied.

"I should have a talk with him about forest ecosystems and overhunting." Huntress Wizard said, matter-of-factly.

"Guys, focus!" Marco yelled as we reached the barrier, looking at the towering monster over us.

Globgor knelt down to greet us.

"Sup?" I asked with a small wave.

"Are you Princess Star Butterfly?" He asked. His voice was like a big old truck going down a dirt road. Gravelly, but not awful.

"Yeah, that's me." Star replied.

"Thank heavens, I've been out here for hours!" He replied. "You must help me. Something terrible has happened to Eclipsa."

"Eclipsa!" Huntress Wizard exclaimed, snapping her fingers, "That's what he was saying. My bad."

"What happened to her?" Marco asked.

"She told me all about your wonderful deeds, small one." Globgor said. "She convinced me that perhaps times had changed. But then...an awful green mist swarmed our home. She got these weird horns...she attacked me and our daughter."

He opened his clenched hands and revealed a small baby girl.

"Awwwww cute baby!" Jake cooed.

"Meteora?!" Star exclaimed.

"That's Meteora?" I blurted, "The one who went all coo-coo for magic puffs and tried to ransack your castle back? And got zapped into a baby?! This is her dad?!"

"Please...what has happened to my wife?" Globgor begged.

"This guy doesn't seem so bad..." Marco said, turning to Star.

"Slow it down, Globgor. So what happened?" Star asked.

"She grabbed her wand. She blasted at us. And took to the skies. I grabbed Meteora and fled." Globgor said. It was kinda weird seeing this big monster guy on the verge of tears.

"The Lich has possessed your wife." Star sighed.

"But why would he leave them alive? No offense, Globgor." Marco asked.

"He wanted Globgor to tell us." I answered. "Lich has a personal vendetta against me and you, Marco. He said so himself, that he was going to make you watch him burn Mewni. And then we scronked him up. This guy's just a big mailman to deliver our doom invites. I'm Finn, by the way, nice to meet you big G."

"Do you have any idea where they might have gone?" Jake asked.

Globgor shook his head. "I've no idea. But I've a favor to ask, and I know the commission won't let me in; Hekapoo is a jerk."

"THANK YOU!" Huntress Wizard and I shouted at the same time.

"But please. Please take Meteora and keep her safe," pleaded Globgor.

He reached his hands down, against the barrier, with his baby at his fingertips. Hesitantly, Star approached, reached through the barrier, and pulled Meteora inside.

"Eyyyyyyy. We gots a baby." I sang.

"We'll keep her safe, and free your wife, Globgor." Star pleaded.

"When you have freed Eclipsa...I will return." Globgor said, turning and retreating back into the woods.

"Okay bye!" Shouted Jake, "Nice meeting you!"

Star turned to us, holding Meteora. "Okay...we should...we should go tell mom."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, just to note, I actually like Hekapoo. I just really thought it'd be funny for her to be just this antagonistic force for Finn and Jake, but ultimately be ineffectual.


	6. A Little Wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperate times call for desperate measures, so the group temporarily splits up to obtain materials to build a new wand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing! Nothing!

\---  
Marco's Point of View  
\---  
If I had to describe the look Moon and River's faces, it'd be a combination of exasperation and surprise.

"So, basically, that combines two of our problems, but, I mean, we know what the Lich is doing, so there's that?" Star said as she finished explaining the situation.

"This isn't good..." Moon sighed, rubbing her chin. "With the wand and Eclipsa's powers, the Lich is the most powerful being on Mewni."

"And we've no wand to fight back with!" River exclaimed.

"Well why don't you make a new one?" Glossaryck piped in, sounding bored out of his mind, floating around the room.

I blinked in surprise. Star and Moon both turned to glare at Glossaryck, slowly.

"What the HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" Star yelled, angrily.

"Glossaryck," Moon seethed, keeping her composure just ever so more than Star, "In all my years, no one has ever mentioned making a wand. How would it even be possible?"

"I mean, I made the wand," Glossaryck shrugged, "all it would take is the right materials. Mewni only ever needed one before, but we can make another one temporarily, considering the circumstances."

"Why wouldn't you mention this sooner?!" I yelled, throwing my hands up, exasperated.

"Because Marco," he sighed, "last time there were two wands around, Toffee returned, magic went on the fritz, and everything went horrible."

"That's...fair." I admitted.

"Alright guy, how do we make one of these magic wands to scronk the Lich up in his dome piece?" Finn asked.

"Well, Finn," Glossaryck said, conjuring an image of the wand, "We need a crystal of trans-dimensional power. One that can enact great change and power from merely a touch. Then, we need a magic container to keep it in. One that can contain and channel such power. I mean we need a hilt and unicorn spirit, but that stuff I've got lying around."

Huntress Wizard reached into Finn's backpack and pulled out a raggedy, beat up book. At first glance it almost looked like Star's old spell book. The two of them began flipping through the pages.

"What's that?" Star asked.

"It's the Enchiridion," Huntress Wizard answered, "Finn's hero handbook. All sorts of lore in this thing."

"We could probably use the Crystal Eye," Finn said, pointing, "but it's in a pretty nasty dungeon, plugging a hole of gross eyeball demons."

"Let me see that, I'm sure nothing on your dimension could possibly be good enough." Glossaryck scoffed, before taking one glance at the page and declaring, "Oh wait, that's actually perfect."

"Alright, but what do we use for the wand part?" I asked.

"You're going to want to go to the old Mithril mining operation that was abandoned decades ago, under the castle." Glossaryck replied. "And you'll need a ton of ore. A ton. Like a lot."

I sighed. "And why was it abandoned?" I asked, flatly.

"Big ole dragon. Ate everyone." Glossaryck replied.

"Greeeeaaaaaat." I groaned.

There was a low rumble of thunder outside of the castle. We all gathered to the window to see a blackened sky in the distance, with swirling clouds and green lightning.

"I bet you like five thousand corns that's the Lich," Jake said, eating some more corn flakes.

"We should hurry. I want to fight the dragon." Huntress Wizard said.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Moon sighed, but she turned to Star and me. "You two split yourselves up and get. That. Wand. I will need to rally the troops to hold her off."

"I...Mom..." Star stammered, but regained her usual bravado. "We got this."

"I won't let you down, Queen Moon!" I assured.

"Well, I should probably go and carry the ore since I can make myself into a big old minecart." Jake reasoned.

"And I know the dungeon of the Crystal Eye," Finn said. "But the eye itself is ginormous, so we'll probably need all six of Star's super arms to move it. "

"So you and Star go get the eye, and me, Jake, and Huntress Wizard can go kill a dragon." I concluded. "Man, this is a weird week."

"You ready to get out of here?" Star asked Finn.

He gave a thumbs up. "Dungeon crawl is my element, S.B."

Huntress Wizard took his hand. "Finn, be safe."

He smiled and gave her a smooch. "No worries HuntWiz, we'll be back faster than a regular Susan. You be safe too."

Huntress Wizard turned to Star, but Star just waved it off, "Yeah, I know, anything happens to him, the arrows go in the nose."

Huntress Wizard turned red. "I just...worry...sometimes."

Star and I exchanged a look and laughed. "I'll return your precious Finn unharmed," Star assured.

"Hey, you be careful too, Star..." I added, grabbing her shoulder.

She turned and smiled at me. "Aw, Marco, you know I kick all the butt." She hugged me tightly. "You watch out for yourself though. I don't want any other squire."

"Well since no one told me, I'm going to ka-raaaaaazy!" Jake yelled, morphing into a wheel and rolling out of the room.

"Oh boy, well, we'll see you guys back here!" I exclaimed. "Jake wait!"

\---  
Finn's Point of View  
\---

Marco and Huntress Wizard chased Jake out of the room, and I smiled. "What a goof. Alright Princess B, Let's head back to Ooo!"

Star spun, turning into her butterfly form, and opened a hole in the room. "After you, Finn Mertens!"

"Check it: double backflip into the portal." I said, pumped.

"No way!" She laughed, sticking her tongue out. "Bet you can't!"

I squatted down and performed my sick double backflip, bursting through the portal and flipping back into my pond. Under the water, I saw one of the water nymphs. We waved to each other, and I surfaced to see Star hovering over the pond.

"Sick flips, Finn." She squealed, "Sorry about the landing though."

"Nah, you're good." I replied, climbing onto the grass. "The dungeon is over yonder over them thar hill though, so we can walk or fly. Depends on if you feel like carrying me."

She reached down and grabbed my robo arm and took off in the direction I had pointed. "I'm like super jacked like this, and flying is faster."

"Right on, a long as I'm not weighing you down." I advised. I did like flying though. It was so freeing.

"Part of me wants to hurry in case Marco needs my help with the dragon." Star admitted.

"Oh." I replied. I paused, and said, "you should trust him. Marco seems like a cool guy. And Jake and H Dubs are pro dragon-slayers."

"It's not that I don't trust Marco, I just..." She trailed off.

Hmm. I know that voice, it's the one I used to do when moping about Bubblegum. Jake would always make me feel-better-waffles. I don't have waffles, but maybe I can play big brother this time.

"Juuuuuust?" I asked.

"Marco has always been there for me. He's my best friend. He's more than that. And I've come way too close to losing him." Star said.

"I think there's some stuff you're not saying, Star." I said. "And that's okay. I know you have a boyfriend."

She was quiet for a minute. "I'm a real screw up, huh? Got feelings for my best friend, when I have a boyfriend. I'm a jerk. Too bad it can't be easy like with you and Huntress Wizard."

I laughed. "Dude. First of all, we're not perfect. And before I met Huntress Wizard, I've messed up a crud load of relationships."

"Yeah?" She asked.

"Totally. For years I was nuts about Princess Bubblegum. And I'd mess up trying to impress her, donk up hero missions. And then there was my first girlfriend, Flame Princess."

"Oooohhhhh tell me the dirty details, bear hat!" Star said, clearly ready for the juicy deets.

"Well, I found out I got some really cool dreams when she fought Ice King. I ended up lying and manipulating her so she'd do it again. She found out and she dumped me." I explained. Those were dark times in my hero days.

"Oh..." Star said. "That's...pretty bad, Finn."

"Yeah," I agreed, "I was a jerk. She was right to dump me. I was younger and being selfish. We made up and became friends, but it was something that I had to learn I guess. We all screw up, Star. It's part of growing up."

"You think so?" Star asked.

"Totally. I've learned to take things as they come and be a better boyfriend to Huntress Wizard that way. Jake used to always tell me, if you aren't learning, you aren't living." I said. "Star, you gotta look in your brainscape and ask that bad boy what it wants. In the end, that's what you should do. Whether it's Marco or your B.F. or to run away and date a burrito, Star's gotta make that decision for Star-self."

"Yeeah." She said, sounding more chipper. "You're right, Finn. I got some talking to do with my brain meats!"

"Cool, just not right now, the dungeon is right at that stump." I said, pointing at the entrance to the forbidden dungeon.

We landed, Star returned back to normal, and she punched over a, "Keep Out," sign.

"No sign is gonna tell Star Butterfly what to do!" She cried.

I laughed. "Yeah, let's go kick some butt!" I tore the cover off the stump that led to the forbidden dungeon, and hopped down, Star hopping in after me. She passed me on the right running through the various traps and dodging them fairly easily, dancing past the hidden arrows that show out of the side of the wall.

"Dang princess, you're a natural at dungeons!" I complimented, rolling under some arrows myself.

"Pfft, I've been fighting monsters and breaking into places since I was in diapers, Finn!" She answered, hopping over some floor spikes, adding a flip in mid air for flair.

"Watch out the knife-pixies!" I shouted, pointing to the small flying creatures dual wielding machetes.

Star ducked them, changed into her butterfly form, and yelled, "Narwhal blast!" Causing a magical ray of energy and tiny whales with horns to blast the pixies to oblivion.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed, "Is that what your magic usually looks like?"

"Totally!" She shouted, "RAINBOW FIST PUNCH!"

A giant rainbow fist knocked the last knife-pixie across the trapped hallway.

"My spells are awesome!" She said, proudly.

"I wonder why the Lich just used boring green blasts?" I pondered. I turned and punched a skeleton that was sneaking up behind me, disintegrating it with my robo-fist. "THAT'S RUDE, I'M TALKING, YOU TRANCH!"

"Probably not like an undead monster to blast things with cupcakes and rainbows." Star pointed out.

"Eh, Lich never struck me as someone who cared what power looked like, as long as he could use it." I replied. "Be careful, this chamber used to house the demon cat of approximate knowledge."

"The whaaaaaaat?" She asked.

"FRANK THE APE-MAN, YOU HAVE RETURNED AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!" Came a booming voice from a cave at the end of the room. The demon cat emerged.

I sighed. "That," I replied, exasperated, "Is the cat who almost knows many things."

"I SEE YOU'VE BROUGHT THE DUCHESS OF A NEIGHBORING KINGDOM! BUT NO DOG!" Demon Cat yelled.

"Not...quite..." Star said, perplexed.

"Look, bruh," I said, drawing my sword, "I'm not the scared little boy you pushed around here five years ago. We need the Crystal Eye for real. I don't want to hurt you."

Without warning, the Demon Cat pounced at me, but I slashed across his face with my Nightosphere sword. He collapsed on a heap in the ground, but turned to slash me with his claws. I rolled out of the way, and Star flew over me, shouting Narwhal Blast. The Demon Cat dashed out of the way.

"Hit me if you can! You shall never succeed!" He hissed, "I know where you'll probably aim!"

Star blasted him again, knocking him out.

"What a jerk." She shook her head.

I put my sword in it's backpack slot. "Yeah, that guy mashed my potatoes as a kid."

"How long have you and Jake been adventurers?" Star asked, blasting open the locked door the demon cat was guarding.

"Oh, since we were little," I replied, grabbing my sword to slice up more knife-pixies. "Our parents were detectives, and they would take us with them to toughen us up. Hey, duck behind this boulder!"

She looked around, confused, but hid behind a large boulder with me. "What are we doing here?"

I pointed as a missile zoomed past us, went through the door we just came through, and exploded.

"Bazooka Goblin had you in it's sights. It's guarding the door to the Bucket Knight." I explained.

"Monsters here are weird, Finn." Star said, raising an eyebrow at me. "Just...weird."

I shrugged.

The Bazooka Goblin cackled. Star listened, the smiled at me. "Check it out. I'm going to bounce a spell off that rock wall, and knock it out."

"You're on!" I challenged her.

She transformed again, "Strawberry Shake Quake!"

A pink blast of strawberries rebounded off the wall and flew over our heads, smacking into the goblin. I could hear the thud and the groan as he was knocked out. We sprang out from the behind the rock to see she had nailed it perfectly.

"Nice shot, B-fly. Now onto the Bucket Knight!" I charged.

Star flew in behind me, confused. "What's a Bucket Knight?"

There, in the middle of the room, was the tiny Bucket Knight, "Greetings, warriors!"

"Sup?" We said in unison, each with a small wave.

"If you seek the Crystal Eye, you must overcome the challenge of the Bucket Knight!" He cried, grabbing a bucket of water, and dumping it on himself. "Just add water for EXPONENTIAL GROWTH!"

Just like from my past, the knight grew to the size of a house. This time, I was ready. He slammed a hand down at me, but I jumped over it, and came down stabbing my sword though the back of his hand. Star flew up to his face and yelled, "RAINBOW FIST PUNCH!"

The impact on the Knight ripped his hand out of the ground, sending me into the air, so I flipped forward and kicked him in the eye. The Knight collapsed onto the ground as I landed.

"Nice moves, Finn!" Star said as we headed to the door at the end of the hallway, which was still torn down. "What happened here?"

"So when I was younger, I didn't have a sword and I couldn't fight the knight on my own," I admitted, "so I had to break the door down to live."

"Yeah, this is definitely more of a two person dungeon," Star agreed.

"Psh, with your powers you could knock this place down no sweat," I said. "I was being stubborn and thought I could do this without Jake."

"Maybe," she conceded, "but stuff like this is way more fun with someone to watch your back. It's part of what brings me and Marco together, all these adventures and stuff."

"Totes," I agreed, "nothing brings people together like dungeons and fighting evil. In my opinion. H Dubs and I even began our relationship by killing a Grumbo."

"So what happened to this place?" Star asked as we emerged into the penultimate chamber of the dungeon; it was where Jake and I had crushed the, "Guardian Angel," back all those years ago. What was left of the cage was still on the floor.

"Long story," I answered, "Basically Jake and I used that cage to squash the final boss of this place. It was banaynays."

We entered the room of the Crystal Eye. I pointed and explained, "So the Crystal Eye plugs that hole to the underworld where Evil Eye Demons live. We're going to need to find something to prevent the demons from leaking out before we yank that thing."

"You leave that to me, Finn," Star assured, "I have a spell ready if you can move that thing."

I nodded. I climbed up to the altar, squatted down, and with all my might lifted the Crystal Eye and threw it to the side.

"MYSTIC ROOM SUCK TRANSFORM!" Star yelled, creating a black hole at the edge of the pit, which began sucking in all the eye demons. Once the terrified roars stopped, she stopped the hole.

I peered down into the pit, now empty. "What was that?" I asked, "It was AWESOME!"

"It's a black hole into a void of nothingness" Star stated. "They can't do any harm there!"

"Nice one!" I said, "Now open one of those portals and let's get this thing back to Mewni."

She tore a hole in the room, and the two of us walked into the Mewni Castle banquet hall. Marco, Jake, and Huntress Wizard were already there, with piles of Mithril ore.

"Sup?" Jake asked with a small wave.

"How'd the mining operation go?" I asked.

\---  
Marco's Point Of View  
\---

We had chased Jake out of the feast hall into the garden, where he finally changed back to normal. "So how do we get to mines, Marcoooo?" Jake asked.

"Me?" I exclaimed, "You ran out of the room before Glossaryck could tell me!"

"Oh. Well, whoops." Jake shrugged.

"You, redheaded girl watching us from those bushes!" Huntress Wizard called out, pointing at a shrub, "Where are the mines?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Huntress Wizard, no one's in the..."

I stopped my sentence as Higgs guiltily shuffled out of the bush.

"You?" I questioned, "What are you doing spying on us, Higgs?"

She turned pretty red. "I don't trust your friends."

"You're not very good at spying to be that distrustful." Huntress Wizard replied, flatly, "You're also a pretty bad liar, because I think you're spying on Marco. Why don't you save yourself the embarrassment and tell us where the mines are?"

"I-I wasn't spying on...I would never!" Higgs began stuttering out, but just stopped and pointed, "stairs are down the hall, second door to the right!"

"Thanks, creep!" cheered Jake, and stretched down to the door she specified, opening it and going on without us.

"Er...thanks, Higgs." I added, walking away with Huntress Wizard. "How did you know she was spying on us?"

She shrugged. "As a wood nymph, I have an enhanced sense of smell. I also used to spy on Finn sometimes before I could admit I had feelings for him."

I snickered. "You seem so confident though, I'm kinda surprised."

She smiled. "I was afraid finding love would make me weak. That it was for ordinary people."

"No offense, but that seems a bit silly." I replied.

She laughed. "It is. That's what Jake said and is maybe the one time he was right where I wasn't. Just like you and Star: I can see your love for her, and you are far from ordinary, Marco."

Now it was my turn to go bright red. "I'm not anything special. And is it that obvious?"

Huntress Wizard turned down the stairs after Jake and answered, "Ridiculously obvious."

"Greeeaaaaaat." I sighed.

"Don't worry about it so much, dude. You're a pretty cool guy. If attracting forces will it, it will happen." Huntress Wizard replied with a shrug.

"What's that even mean?" I asked.

"Well, like I said," said Huntress Wizard, "at first I didn't want to admit these feelings for Finn. But in my dreams, I heard his flute song. Then one day in the forest, I heard him playing, and I rushed to him, just to catch a glimpse. And I spied on him a little. One day, after he lost someone he tried to save, I found him at his most low. And I couldn't leave until I could bring his spirits up. Something in me couldn't bear to see him that way. The two of us were connected. Since then, Finn has been my pack, and I learned some people are stronger together."

"I'm not sure I understand," I admitted.

She shrugged. "If nature wills it, it'll happen. Or you can just date the creepy redhead. She was in to you."

I laughed as we reached the bottom of the stairs, and the entrance to the mine, lined with green-colored rocks, where Jake was waiting. "Says the woman who just admitted to stalking her boyfriend before going out with him."

"You weirdos talking about attracting forces?" Jake asked.

"Yes," muttered Huntress Wizard, rolling her yes, "I know, you think it's dumb."

"Man, who has time for that when we gotta fight a dragon!" Jake said, not sounding at all worried about dragons.

I looked at the green rock ores. "How are we going to know where the Mithril is? Or what it looks like?"

"I've seen some Mithril on Ooo," Huntress Wizard answered, "I'm sure I could find it in there as long as it looks similar.."

We began traversing deep in the mines; thankfully the magical torches were all still lit.

"Is it kinda messed up that it was possible to make a new wand forever, and no one knew about it?" Jake asked.

"Maybe," I answered as we wandered down an old mine shaft the branched down deeper into the cave, "I mean, it's immensely powerful. The whole problem is that if the one that exists were to fall into the wrong hands, Mewni would be overthrown and destroyed. If they were everywhere, it could just be chaos."

"I don't know man, like everyone and their mom is magic on Ooo and most of its fine," Jake retorted.

"That's because all magic users on Ooo are afflicted with madness and sadness." Huntress Wizard replied. "Doesn't make them very effective."

"Even you?" I asked, surprised. She seemed pretty with it.

She didn't answer, and I saw Jake shake his head at me to not press the issue. Oops. I hope she's not mad at me.

We all abruptly stopped in our tracks as the shaft emptied into a vast, empty chasm. At the bottom of the pit were shining purple stones, loosely sitting in a pile, with a sleeping, red dragon in front of it. It was almost like the one I found on my first visit with my parents, just with less heads. "Well, that's Mithril if I've ever seen it." Huntress Wizard asserted.

"And the dragon." I observed. "Maybe if you're quiet, Jake, you could stretch down there and get the rocks without waking him?"

Jake nodded and carefully stretched his leg down to the dragon's den. Just in case, Huntress Wizard prepared a fleet of arrows, all pointed at the dragon. He snuck up on the dragon's tail, which is where the stones were stored. He stretched into a box-like cart, and grabbed a Mithril stone, giving it a tug. The dragon's eyes snapped open, and it turned, showing that the cluster of stones were attached to its tail.

It made eye contact with Jake, and Jake immediately shapeshifted into an orange copy of the dragon, and bat his eyelashes at it. "Hey big boy," he said in a terrible, awful, just really bad woman's voice, "How are you doing today?"

The dragon, wasn't falling for it, and breathed a blast of fire at Jake, who stretched a circle in his body to dodge, and shrunk down out of sight. Huntress Wizard sent her volley of arrows, ten of them lodging into the dragon's neck. It roared, in anger and rounded itself towards the cave we were in. But before it could attack, Jake grew himself large and punched the dragon across the face. The dragon roared again, but whipped around and smacked Jake in the side of his head with its stone tail, knocking him to the ground, stunned.

I backed up as the dragon turned to us, and leapt out of the save for a flying kick right in the dragon's eye, causing him to roar in pain and claw at his eyes. I was able to scramble up to the top of its head and slide down its back to escape. As it finished clawing, Huntress Wizard flung even more arrows at its eyes, and began to conjure up more from her quiver. The dragon rear its head to breathe fire again, but from the floor, Jake stretched his limbs up to the dragon's mouth and tied it shut. The dragon began to thrash about, but Jake pull himself up to the dragon's head, grew his jowls into giant fists, and bashed the side of the dragon's head, finally knocking him out.

Huntress Wizard leapt down to us at the bottom of the pit, conjured a massive arrow, and used it to cut the Mithril off the tail of the dragon. "Nice work boys," she smiled, "let's see if we can get this back before Finn and Star return from Ooo."

Jake turned back into a mine cart with legs, and we hopped aboard as he carried us back out the way we came. "Man, dragons are lame."

"I don't know, they're kind of fun to hunt," replied Huntress Wizard, "but maybe that's because I don't see them often in the woods."

"Yeah, Finn and I were punching dragon buns when we were like eight," Jake replied.

"You guys sure had an interesting childhood," I laughed.

"Eh, dad wanted to make sure we grew up tough," said Jake, "but he and mom cared about us. They were awesome."

We came back to the feast hall and not long after, Finn and Star returned, carrying the giant Crystal Eye. He asked how the expedition went, and we exchanged our tales of our adventures.

Glossaryck, who was still floating around the empty hall, came up to inspect our findings. "Wow, surprised you managed that so fast. All you need to do is take that to the blacksmith, where I've sent everything else."

"Okay, we can just go into town –" Star began, but Glossaryck cut her off.

"Oh no, not that blacksmith." Glossaryck corrected her, "You have to take them to the ultimate blacksmith in the underworld. The Underforge. I've already called for Tom to come get you."

"Greeeeaaaat." Star sighed, facepalming.

I felt my heart jump into my chest.

"Hey M-Deez," Finn whispered to me, "whose Tom?"

I gulped and whispered back, "Star's boyfriend."

Finn, Jake, and Huntress Wizard exchanged indiscernible looks. "Drama bomb." Finn said, quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Next chapter won't be up until around next weekend, most likely, as I will be out of town.


	7. Star, the Mewman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wand needs to be forged to combat the Lich, but is there time?

\---  
Star's Point of View  
\---

Kinda wish I could punch Glossaryck, but a portal of fire already had split in the room, and my demon boyfriend was already stepping into the room.

"Heeeeeyyyyyy babe!" I said, putting on my usual happy face.

He leapt forward and hugged me tightly. "I'm so glad you're alright!"

"Well duh," I hugged him back, my guts twisting in guilt, "We just talked last night."

He pulled away and looked at Finn and the others in confusion. "Are these the guys you told me about?"

"Sup?" Finn asked with a small wave.

"Yeah, so that's Finn, that's his magic dog brother Jake, and that's Huntress Wizard." I said, pointing.

"Your name is-?" Tom began, but Huntress Wizard cut him off and said, "It's a title."

"Hey Tom," Marco greeted, sounding about as awkward and crappy as I felt.

Tom scratched the back of his head. "Hey man."

Finn must have picked up on how weird this was and clapped, exclaiming, "Ooookay! Come on guys, let's go forge a wand and kick the Lich right in the boingloins!"

Jake, still being a minecart, got up and grabbed the Crystal eye and walked through the fire portal, followed by Marco, Finn, and Huntress Wizard.

Tom shifted uncomfortable and looked at me before stepping in. "Hey, we need to talk…."

"Not now," I sighed, "Literally got a Lich breathing down our backs."

He frowned, but nodded. "I understand. Come on, let's go."

I felt a pang of guilt. This would be easier if Tom was a jerk about this, but that's not the truth. I'm the jerk. We walked into the underworld, into a bleak, desert-like landscape, filled with dead oak trees and lava ponds – the dead forest. Quite a far cry from Lava Lake Beach.

"Never get tired of this place," I muttered, flatly. "Love what you've done with it."

"I know! The dead forest is beautiful this time of year," he replied, excitedly, sarcasm going right over his head. The Underworld has it's charms, sometimes, but this is not one of them.

"So where do we got to go, T-bomb?" Finn asked.

Tom took the lead, avoiding eye contact with Marco. "Follow me, the entrance is well-hidden to avoid unsavory types."

"I mean...why be in the Underworld if you want to avoid unsavory types?" Huntress Wizard asked.

Tom paused. "I uh...no idea. It's just always been here?"

I think I preferred punching evil monsters with Marco or Finn than guilt and romance drama. Oof.

"Aaaaaand the hidden tree should be right…here!" Tom said, grabbing the branch of a nearby tree, causing it to click and then a stair case appeared in the dirt before us. "The Forge is right down here."

We pushed open a large metal door to find a blacksmith shop. I did a double take at who was running it.

"Hekapoo?!" I asked, shocked. "I thought you just forged scissors."

The Hekapoo in front of me rubbed her neck in confusion, but gave a friendly smile that looked out of place on her usually snarky face.

"Oh, I'm not the original Hekapoo," she explained. "She sent a bunch of us clones to go learn skills centuries ago, so she could re-absorb us and learn them in no time. She kind of just forgot about me, so I've been here being the ultimate universal blacksmith ever since."

"So you don't remember me, or Finn or anything?" Marco asked.

The Hekapoo clone eyes Marco up and down. "Can't say I do, but I wouldn't mind getting to know YOU, meat sack. You're pretty cute for a Human."

I felt my eye twitch and my fist clench, but I took a deep breath. Marco also shifted his eyes uncomfortably.

"HekaTwo," Tom said, "Glossaryck sent us to see if you could forge a new magic wand with the materials we brought you and with what he sent you earlier."

Jake tilted and dumped the Crystal Eye and Mithril onto the floor. "Here you go!"

HekaTwo inhaled sharply. "Aw man. That's what all the new stuff was for?! That guy never tells us anything!"

"Welcome to my world," I muttered, causing Marco to snicker. He gets it.

"Is there a problem?" Huntress Wizard asked.

HekaTwo cracked her knuckles. "Nope. This is the day I've been training for. This will take a while though." She began chucking hunks of Mithril into the forge. "Part of me never thought I'd see the day it finally happened."

"We don't exactly have awhile. The wand was taken by Eclipsa, whose been possessed. They're going to break through the castle barrier at any time, and when they do, it's game over for Mewni. Maybe even all existence." I explained. "Explosions, fire, rain of blood and slime. Maybe some spinny death-wind."\

"You mean a tornado?" asked Marco.

I snapped. "Yeah, that! Tornado!"

HekaTwo's eyes widened. "I'll work as fast as I can. But it still will take a day or so."

"We should go prepare for a fight then, with your mom," Marco suggested, "she's going to need all the help she can get."

"You really think there's anything we could do?" Tom asked. "We didn't stand a chance against Meteora, and Eclipsa curb-stomped her."

"That doesn't matter," replied Marco, "The Lich is coming. And if we don't do something..."

"Every one bites it." Finn answered. "Stay here, Tom, and bring us the wand when it's ready."

I smiled. I don't think I'll ever admit it to Marco, but that attitude is part of why I'm all confused about things right now. He's never hesitated to fight for the right thing.

But I don't have time for that!

Tom reluctantly nodded. "Alright. I'll do what I can."

He used his powers to rip a flame portal back to the castle. The others went through, but before I could walk through, Tom grabbed my shoulder. Again. Note to self: go through portals first.

"Star..." He started. "I'm sorry I was so dismissive about this Lich stuff."

"It's okay, Tom." I assured him, "It's been a wacky couple of days. And..."

Now's as good a time as any. Especially if everyone bites it... I'd feel terrible not getting this off my chest if something happened.

"I'm sorry about kissing Marco." I added, and I saw his eyes well up. "The truth is Tom, I don't know what I want. I've got a lot of mixed up feelings about you and Marco, and I think I need to figure this out. But...I want you to know, you HAVE improved yourself so much, and become such a better person. I'm proud of you and I never wanted to hurt you."

He turned away, shaking. I'm not sure from what, but he said, "Thank you for being up front with me. I'll bring you your wand. Just...I need to be alone right now."

"Dang son, this got intense," HekaTwo called from the forge. Kinda forgot she was there. Whoops.

"I'm sorry, Tom." I said, turning and running through the portal. I wiped my eyes as I stepped into the garden. I didn't have time for this.

Unfortunately, everyone was looking at me, including Marco who looked really concerned.

"Star, are you...?" He began to ask.

"Come on, I know where to find my mom," I said, feigning my usual upbeat attitude, and running past them.

I missed life back on Earth, with the Diaz's. Life seemed so much easier.

But we found Mom in the military hall, overseeing some of the knights' training for the upcoming fight. This is why I'm here, and not there.

"Were you able to get the wand?" She asked. Oof, I'll never get used to seeing my mom this freaked out.

"It's going to take a day to forge." I answered, playing with my hair nervously, "Tom will bring it when it's ready. We're here to help until then."

"Star, then you hang back for the wand. We will delay them The Lich as long as possible." Mom said, grimly.

"What do you mean-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooh." Finn cried out, looking out the past the lowered drawbridge.

"Well that didn't take long." Jake said.

"Oh snaps." I uttered. The storm clouds had spread all across Mewni, bringing green lightning to the magical barrier. I was about to transform when my mom grabbed my shoulders.

"Star, no..." She pleaded, "The only chance we have of matching Eclipsa's power is if you get the wand. It has to be you."

I clenched my fist. "I'm not going to sit here and send my friends to DIE,Mom!"

"Hey, rude." Huntress Wizard objected. "If anything, we'll kill Lich and you'll be all sad you didn't get in on any of this."

"Yeah, S.B.," Finn added, "We got this. No worries."

Jake morphed into a giant spiky monster. "I'm going to punch your not-grandma in the face until she's not possessed anymore."

"But what if the Lich possesses someone else?" Marco asked.

"I got a plan for that, M-Daz!" Finn smirked.

They charged after Mewni Knights, but I grabbed Marco before he left. "Marco Diaz, you listen to your princess."

He smiled. "What's up?"

I held him tightly. "Come back to me, okay?"

He squeezed me back. "Of course."

He took off running towards the others.

I turned to my Mom. "There's gotta be something I can do. I don't know if you've noticed, but sitting on the sidelines isn't exactly my deal."

"I've noticed," she replied, flatly. "Star, the wand is our only chance."

I noticed Eclipsa had finally emerged from the storm. Like with me, her eyes were black with slits, and horns bursting from her head. She floated against the magical barrier, and I froze. She wasn't looking at the army, or even at Finn or Marco, but she was looking past the kingdom, directly into my eyes.

She spoke, and I heard the Lich's voice in my own ears, as if they were next to me.

"No barrier can hold me child. Not even your mind."

I looked around. The room had gone black.

"Child. Even with a wand, you have already lost. You are no match, for dark power flows through this body."

I blinked, and the Lich, in his true form, the form I had seen in my mind, was a few feet away.

"All life is born to end, Star Butterfly. But today...Marco first."

The room returned to normal and I gasped. I was on the ground, for some reason, and my mom was shaking me.

"Star, what happened?" She was asking. I shoved myself to my feet, and morphed, flying as fast as I possibly could towards the others.

I flew over the crowd of knights, pushing myself as hard as I could go. Above me, the Lich raised the wand – which now looked nothing like the umbrella form Eclipsa had given it – and pointed across the crowds at Marco. The wand looked like a sickly green stick, dripping black ooze. In one green blast, the magic barrier around the castle shattered as it sped through the air towards him.

I was barely able to tackle Marco out of the way, the two of us bouncing along the dirt road as the green blast hit the ground, sending the others flying. As we stopped rolling, The Lich blasted at us again, so I hoisted Marco off the ground and took off flying.

"Thanks, Star." Marco muttered, shocked and still hugging onto me.

"I dunno if I'd thank me yet," I replied, weaving in and out of blasts that were leveling houses left and right. "We need to get her away from town. I'm going to need you to kick her in the face."

He flipped so that he was hanging from my top two arms. "Let's kick some faces."

Weaving between spells, we flew at the Lich rapidly, and I threw Marco as hard as I could. He kicked her straight across the jaw, cracking her neck, but the body did not flinch. But as Marco began to full and the Lich was about to point the wand at Marco, I yelled, "Narwhal blast!" hitting The Lich in the midsection with a direct hit, sending her across the sky. I swooped down to catch Marco as the Lich was already recovering.

We flew down into the woods, and I weaved through the trees as the Lich gave chase behind us. I zig-zagged harder upon realizing that the Lich was faster than me.

"This is kind of like that space movie you took me to see!" I yelled to Marco. A rather bittersweet feeling.

"Can't say I can really enjoy it at the moment," he yelled back.

Without warning, an errant green blast struck my shoulder, sending Marco and I crashing to the forest floor and into some bushes. Thankfully, I landed on top of Marco, but he groaned in pain as I rolled off him. I clutched my burnt shoulder and looked up. My heart sank as the Lich hovered above us. She raised her arm, but before she could blast us. A giant orange fist shot from the foods, punching the Lich out of sight. The fist retracted, and Finn, Jake, and Huntress Wizard ran up to us.

"Sweet moves, guys," Finn said, helping us up to our feet. "We thought maybe you kicked the Lich out of her for a minute."

We heard a roar of pain from deeper in the forest, prompting Finn to draw his sword.

"Today just gets better and better," I said, taking back to the air. We all rushed forward through the woods and came to the clearing where we heard the roar.

"Aw, come on!" Marco yelled as we got view of what had made the noise. "GET OUTTA TOWN, LICH!"

The Lich had found Globor, who had been hiding in the woods, apparently. Not the best hiding place. The Lich had attacked him, and had him sprawled across the clearing. She touched Globgor's head and said, "Fight."

Oh, this is bad.

Globgor climbed to his feet, dead black eyes, possessed just like Rhombulus had been.

"Let's see you protect two places at once from me, princess." The Lich said, before opening a portal and flying through it. On the other side of the portal, we could clearly see the Candy Kingdom.

I went to go fly after him, but Finn grabbed my collar. "Wait!"

"What?!" I whipped around.

Globgor went to stomp on all of us, but Jake grew his arms into some big, beefy ones and held his foot, pushing Globgor back on to the ground.

"Delegate, delegate," Finn said to himself, hitting himself in the forehead with his left fist. The rest of us gathered around him.

"This is what the Lich wants." Finn decided, "He's goading you into following him. Did he appear in your mind when you dived for Marco?"

Surprised, I nodded.

"He's counting on you to leave the kingdom and be further away from the new wand. I'll go after him. Stay here and help Jake beat Globgor! Come on, H Dubs, Marco!"

Marco glanced at me and I realized that he was asking if I was cool with this without words. Even in times like this, he takes being a squire seriously. I nodded and turned back to Finn. "Be careful. Jake and I can handle this."

Finn and Huntress Wizard gave thumbs up in unison before the three of them jumped through the portal to Ooo, and I took to the air to face down Globgor as he got back up. Jake grew himself in size to match Globgor's.

"Magic team up?" I asked Jake.

"MAGIC TEAM UP!" He howled, punching Globgor across the jaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed!


	8. Jake, The Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake muses on his life as an adventurer while fighting it out with Globgor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing!

\---  
Jake's Point of View  
\---

I usually have 100% faith in Finn and his ability to do whatever hero biz without me, but I kinda wish I could have gone with him to stop the Lich. I've lost enough people on Ooo, and I don't need to add my little bro and his girlfriend to that list, or Marco. But here I am, punching this giant monster in the face with Star. That's life, I guess. Open door policy means I roll with it.

Globgor was a tough customer though, battling back and head-butting me right in the mouth after I punched him. I barked and turned myself into a blindfold, wrapping my entire body into a big sheet across all four of his eyes, and began to squeeze as hard as I could. "I'll JUICE the Lich out of you, ya dingus!" I yelled.

"NARWHAL BLAST! STRAWBERRY SHAKE QUAKE!"

Star was blasting this guy all over with weird magic consisting of unicorn-whales and strawberries, and he began to roar and lash out at her blindly. The Mewni army had caught up with us finally, and were throwing spears and shooting arrows into the legs of Globgor. Guy looked like a pincushion, but he was taking it like a champ.

In a rage, Globgor ripped me off of his head and punched me against his palm. Things got dark for a second before Globgor threw me across the forest. In a last ditch effort, I spread myself out like a parachute and floated into the trees.

Moments like this are kind of why I've been considering semi-retiring, which sounded really good as I sprawled across the grass. THAT'LL be a sucky talk to have with Finn. He's a tough kid though. Probably shouldn't worry about that now. I stood up and things got fuzzy…Ugh…Finn shouldn't have taken all the Cyclops Goop with him. I was still dizzy from that walloping.

I began running back towards the fight, stretching my legs out as high as possible to get a better view. And so I could save energy; running sucks and taking big ole steps helps. I'm pretty lazy without my powers.

As I got closer, Globgor snatched Star out of the air and reared up his other hand to smash her.

Yeah, no, not on my watch!

I let out an angry howl, turned into a spiky monster twice the size of Globgor, turned my hand into a mace, and smashed it down on Globgor's skull, stunning him. He dropped Star right away. I then wrapped my arm around him multiple times, turned on my heel, and threw Globgor across the entire forest, and the ground shook as he crashed into a bunch of trees. I shrunk back down to normal to catch my breath. Growing that huge was getting harder and harder as I got older, and my head was still killing me.

Star flew down to me, "Jake! Are you alright? You're looking like you could use some of Finn's backpack goop."

I rubbed my head in pain. "Nothing ole Jake can't handle. Let's go finish this donkus off!"

Before Star could fly back, the Queen flew over to us in her own crazy butterfly form. Feeling awkward, I also gave myself some butterfly wings.

"Star, get back to the castle, I will finish off Globgor!" She commanded.

"Mom, no I have to fight!" Star argued. "You wait for the wand and bring it to me!" She paused, noticed me, and added, "Jake, your wings are super pretty."

"Thanks!" I replied. "Also, I got this pretty sensitive dog nose, and Globgor's coming back here pretty quick, so you might want to figure out who's going and who's going to help me kick him in the buns."

"I'm staying!" Both Star and Moon answered in unison.

I laughed. "Neat." This was kind of like watching someone fight with a mirror.

The ground was already starting to shake as Globgor began his approach, and something clicked in my head.

"Princess, I've got a rad plan." I said, whispering in her ear.

Star gasped, and her eyes lit up. She nodded. "I love it!"

I got into position, and as Globgor peered down onto us, I morphed into a giant foot.

"RAINBOW ROCKET BLAST!" Star yelled, which caused a rainbow jet boost under me, blasting me upwards as my foot-body kicked Globgor right in the boingloins. I've been wanting to do that since Finn got turned into a foot and got to do it to a giant! I got to giant kick someone huge right in the gonads!

Globgor doubled over in pain, and I stretched myself around his arms to tie him up. "RAINBOW FIST PUNCH!" Star yelled, uppercutting Globgor into the air. I flipped myself around, growing to Globgor's size, flipped him in mid air, and planted him headfirst into the ground with a piledriver.

As he collapsed on the ground and the sickly green goo came out of his ear. Globgor had stopped moving too, so I think we managed to get him. I shrank back down to normal, and Star ran up to me. I held out my fist for a fist pound, but she shook it like a handshake instead. Little weird, but we all have our own ways.

"I can see why Finn delegated you to stay here!" Star squealed. "You handled Globgor like he was one of your breakfasts."

Heh...she reminds me of when Finn slayed a monster as a kid. He'd be bouncing off the walls. The long blonde hair helps too. "If you had a bear hat, you'd look like my bro," I told her, a bit nostalgically.

"I...whaaaat?" She asked, tilting her head.

"Nevermind." I replied. "I just got hit in the head too hard. Let's see if your wand is ready, I'm worried about my kids."

Between mining, the forge, and fighting this Globgor guy, it was already quite a day.

"Alright, let's get going." She replied, and we shuffled back off to the castle.

I needed a distraction. At this very moment, my brother is fighting the Lich in some crazy scheme, and if he fails, everyone I know is dead. My girlfriend, my friends, my kids...

Is it okay for me to retire? Can Finn do this without me?

I want to take some time and spend with my kids. But they're like...my age now. They don't even need me, really. Has that made me distant? Could I still be doing more to guide them?

I really didn't need this adventure after the war.

Then again, I never needed adventure. All I was doing was taking care of Finn, and he's the one who decided to run all over Ooo to save everyone. I guess I just tagged along so he wouldn't die. Guess that's still what I'm doing. Mom and Dad left me in charge of him. I guess I've been a better dad to Finn than my own kids.

He turned out pretty good though. I'm proud of him.

All this contemplating makes me hungry, anyway. I need to get some stress eating going on up in this biz.

We were back at the castle anyway, so we walked back into the training hall, and the King ran up to us. "There you are!"

"Is the wand ready?!" Star asked, anxiously.

"What?" He asked. "No, dinner is ready and I need my favorite bib!"

"FOOOOOOD!" I yelled, practically running to the mess hall while Star and her mom began arguing. Hard to focus on saving all of life in existence on an empty stomach.

I barrel rolled into the mess hall and realized how empty it was, with only Hekapoo, the omni-globe head dude, and no knights.

"Do you have to be obnoxious with everything you do?" Hekapoo scowled.

I put my hands on my rubbery dog hips, "No, I just choose to be."

I took a bite of my cornbread as I sat down. "Look Hekapoo," I said, "I know you don't like my little bro because he had to dent Rhombulus' head, but he didn't have a choice. I'm not sure what your beef with us is, but we're just trying to help. We don't want any trouble. Truce?"

She stared at me. It was kind of hard to tell what was on her mind so I just kept eating. And then the plate next to me. And then the one next to that. This went on a few more times.

"Thank you," she muttered, after awhile.

"What?" I asked, though I heard her fine; I just liked giving people a hard time.

"I said thanks! Thanks for all your help!" She yelled. "Yeesh."

I sat back and patted my full belly and compressing it back in with my powers. The fire portal burst from behind me, just like this morning and that Tom kid walked through.

"Oh, is Star here?" He asked me. He looked pretty down. Teens and their girl problems, man.

"She's fighting with her mom, sorry." I answered. I have a feeling I know what they were talking about when Star stayed behind earlier, but that's her personal biz. I ain't stepping in her p-biz. "I can take the wand to her if you're done with it."

"Yeah, He-" Tom stopped and realized Hekapoo was in the room, "The...blacksmith went nuts getting this done so quickly. Just uh...tell her I was here."

"I can probably do that." I replied, as he handed me a metal briefcase. "You okay there?"

He just glared at me and left. Sheesh.

"Tough crowd," I muttered to Hekapoo, who just rolled her eyes at me.

Ignoring her, I got up to find Star and bring this to her. The sooner we blasted the Lich, the sooner I can sleep for like six months. I went back to the training hall and nearly dropped the case.

We apparently hadn't finished Globgor off, and he was outside the castle now while Star and Moon were holding him off.

"OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB!" I yelled, running down to where they were, briefcase on my back. "STAR, YOUR DEMON BOYFRIEND DROPPED OFF THE WAND!"

Star swooped down to meet me, but she was swatted out of the air by Globgor. I growled, grew back to Globgor's size and took a swing at him, but he grabbed my fist. I swing with my left, but he grabbed that hand too and began to try and overpower me. I quickly shot a fist out of my forehead though, knocking Globgor down to the ground. I shrank down, grabbed the briefcase, and ran to Star while Moon began blasting at the monster.

I hopped into the ruins of the house. "Star! Star, where are you?!"

"Ugh..." I heard her moan while raising her hand from the wreckage.

"Hang in there dude!" I yelled, stretching over and using some long noodle arms to pull her our of the rubble.

"Thanks, Jake." She mumbled.

"What happened, dude?" I asked.

"Globgor got back up, and seemed fine for a minute," Star explained as I handed her the metal case, "And then he just started clutching his head, and reverted back to crazy Lich-monster."

"Well you got your wand, let's just blast him and get back to Ooo so we can blast The Lich out of your not grandma." I said, anxiously.

She managed to open the case and grabbed the rather plain looking wand, but the second it hit her hand, it turned into a pink and blue winged magic wand. I gaped. "It's beautiful," I whispered, wiping a tear from my eye.

"Aw thanks, Jake!" Star beamed. "Now come on, we got to stop Globgor for real this time!"

We ran out of the house just in time to see Globgor punch Queen Moon out of the sky, and she crashed into the castle.

"WARNICORN STAMPEDE!" Star yelled with a spin, sending a blast of angry unicorns into Globgor's stomach, and he double over. I tied myself as a big rope around Globgor's legs. And pulled, pulling his legs together and tripping him to the ground, falling head first onto the pavement.

"Come on, you butternut, just give up!" I yelled as Globgor struggled against my bind. Finally in a powerful kick, he managed to fling me off of him as I went flying through the kingdom.

Mewni is a really awesome place. Too bad it keeps getting leveled. Huh. I turned into a glider and turned back towards Globgor for another round. Eventually this guy had to stay down. Moon had recovered too, as the monster got back to his feet. Star was blasting from the ground, and the Queen was going high.

Guess that means I should go for the middle.

I stretched from rooftop to rooftop, getting closer and closer to the monster. When I was closed enough to his back, I stretched my arms all around his midsection, grew to his size, and flipped him backwards, suplexing him right onto the back of his head, and then stretching back to Star. We stopped and watched as the Lich goo oozed out of his head.

"Think he's stopped for good?" I asked.

"I dunno..." Star frowned, "This is what happened last time..."

The queen approached from behind us, and used her power to pile all the wrecked houses onto Globgor, and a bunch of trees too.

"THAT...should hold him. Just in case." The queen sighed.

"Alright, then come on Jake, we need to GO!" Star yelled, turning back into a butterfly and opening a portal.

"Star!" The queen shouted, making us both jump.

"Yeah...?" Star asked, apprehensively.

"Just...be careful." The queen said, dropping the regal act.

Star got a little misty eyed, so I turned away as they hugged. This hit a little too close to home for me. I need to go make sure MY kids are safe.

"We'll be back as soon as possible!" Star assured, grabbing my arm and the two of us leapt back into the candy kingdom.

"Oh no..." I muttered.

The same black clouds and green lighting plagued the entire land, and a weak barrier was surrounding the entire kingdom. The Gumball Guardians were completely destroyed and were blocking the streets.

"The Lich worked fast." Star muttered.

"Star! STAR!"

We both turned to see Marco charging toward us from the Candy Castle. He and Star ran up to each other and hugged, but he pulled away really quickly.

"Guys...something horrible happened," Marco cried, on the verge of tears.

My heart sank. "Where's Finn?"

Marco bit his lip. "Well...a lot's happened since we got here..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who wants a cliffhanger? You. You do.


	9. Marco, The Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco fills Jake and Star in on what they've missed in the few hours they were separated.

\---  
Marco's Point of View  
\---

In hindsight, it was actually pretty smart; Lich was waiting right outside the portal, but to Finn's credit, he had been anticipating Star. As soon as Finn landed, Lich took a split second to be surprised, and then blasted at Finn. Finn was able to use his sword to absorb the magic, and by then Huntress Wizard was already flinging arrows at the Lich. The Lich vanished and teleported ten feet to the left. Lich blasted at me, but I was able to leap to my right to dodge.

I ran towards the Lich and chopped for her neck, but Lich vanished again, appearing right behind me and blasting me point blank in the back. It burned through my hoodie, sending me ten feet forward and skidding across the grass. Lich closed in towards me, but Finn jumped in her path, slashing at her with his sword. She teleported away, but as she reappeared, I saw her dress was ripped and her stomach had been nicked; she hadn't been fast enough to complete dodge Finn.

"You're slippin', Lich!" Finn growled. Huntress Wizard slung more arrows at the Lich but she just raised her wand, seized control of them, and sent them at the three of us. We all rolled out of the way.

Huntress Wizard took off running at high speeds towards the Lich, flinging arrows one at at time so they'd be harder to seize, but Lich just swatted them all out of the way magically. As she got close, she went for a leaping kick, that, I must say, was actually really impressive. But the Lich just got HER in mid air, and magically flung her high into the air and into the forest several hundred feet away.

"ARTEMIS!" Finn yelled in horror.

Oh, that must be her name. Maybe it's supposed to be secret? I'll pretend I didn't hear that.

The split second distraction was all Lich needed to warp behind Finn and blast him in the back of the head. Finn was thrown across the ground, his bear hat exploding off of his head, causing his long, blonde hair to cover him as he collapsed. No clue how he fit it all in there.

Lich moved right past me to finish Finn off, and I realized it was up to me. I leapt forward to deliver a side kick into the Lich's temple, spinning it into a neck chop and moving forward with a palm strike. The Lich reeled backwards, but her hand shot forward and grabbed my throat, lifting me off the ground.

Without moving Eclipsa's mouth, Lich spoke to me, and said, in a low voice. "You will be the first to be able to land such blows on me, child. You should feel proud in this death."

I flinched, but a volley of lasers came from the sky, blowing the Lich off of me. I looked up and had to blink a few times; Princess Bubblegum was flying over to us on a giant swan, using a lever on the swan's head to shoot lasers out of its eyes. I guess if I have laser puppies, a remote controlled laser swan isn't the weirdest thing, but it was still a weird sight.

The Lich turned on her heel and in one shot, blasted the swan from the sky. Bubblegum crashed into the ground.

On instinct, I ran to Princess Bubblegum, but I was frozen in mid air by the Lich's magic.

"You will not escape, child." Came the dreaded voice from behind me.

I was spun around in the air as Lich approached me, slowly, savoring having me in her grasp. But as she drew her wand up to my chest, Finn's grappling hook shot from the ground, clutching her foot, and forcefully pulling her back to where Finn was waiting to punch her across the back of her head with the hilt of his sword, following up with a brutal haymaker with his robot hand. The Lich was knocked to the ground, and Finn readied his sword to plunge into her chest,

But for a split second, Eclipsa's eyes returned to normal, and she pleaded, "Don't!"

The split second hesitation of Finn remembering that we were trying to spare Eclipsa was all the Lich needed to take control and blast Finn. He laid back on the ground and I realized the look on his face - his soul had been damaged. He had the those blank, lifeless eyes.

Before the Lich could advance further, a barrage of arrows came flying from the woods, piercing the side of the Lich, making her double over in pain. I looked over to see Huntress Wizard barrelling towards us, faster than I had ever seen her move before, closing in on us fast, slinging arrow after arrow as she approached. The Lich took off to the sky, retreating back towards the forest as Huntress Wizard skid to a halt, kneeling by Finn.

"Finn..." She whispered, in a voice very unlike her usual cool, cocky tone. It was almost a whimper. I remember what she told me, about Finn being her pack.

She stood up though, and something seemed...off. She looked over at me and I noticed her eyes were now just glowing a powerful, forest green. I stepped back, in shock, and I could feel Princess Bubblegum grab my shoulder.

"Fix him," Huntress Wizard hissed, before charging back off towards the forest in pursuit of the Lich.

"Oh no..." Princess Bubblegum moaned, running over to Finn once the coast was clear.

"She's sucked his soul, I've seen it before." I added, not sure what other help I could be. "Was that...the wizard madness and sadness Huntress Wizard told me about."

"Yes," sighed the princess, "from what I've observed, Huntress Wizard has been able to use nature and the ways of forest living to keep it under control, at the expense of living with repressed emotions. But seeing Finn like this..."

I stared off after where Huntress Wizard had sped off at. I don't blame her. I punched a hole in Toffee when I thought he killed Star.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"Huntress Wizard will have to keep Lich busy. We need to fix Finn. Help me get him to my swan." She commanded.

The two of us hoisted Finn on to her giant laser-swan (I will never tire of saying that), and she flew back to the Candy Kingdom, landing at the gates. There was a massive barrier, not unlike the one that surrounded Mewni. However, this one must have been made scientifically, as the princess opened a small door with a remote control after landing, and closed it behind us as the swan flew us towards the castle.

"So how do we fix Finn losing his soul?" I asked. "The only way I've ever seen one recovered is if the person who stole it is destroyed, or the person is taken to the Realm of Magic."

"All that's just magic mumbo jumbo for things wizards can't explain, Marco," replied Bubblegum as if she was teaching a class, "you can't steal someone's soul, just sap its energy and leave them deactivated. We just got to juice Finn's soul energy back up and he'll be his usual heroic self."

"Oh," I said, relieved, "that doesn't sound too bad."

She shook her head as the swan flew up to her tower of the castle. "It's easier said than done. Soul Energy is crazy hard to come by."

Apparently the Lich wasted no time before Bubblegum put up her barrier; two giant gumball machines were strewn across the ground, smashed apart.

"Yeah, it's never easy, is it?" I mumbled. "So what do we got to do?"

The swan flew us into the lab that we had used to test Star. We carried Finn onto a hospital bed, and the princess looked rather grim. "There's something I wasn't planning on telling Finn about the war, but it looks like this may be the only way to save him. Come with me."

"Um...okay?" I replied. I didn't really follow what she was talking about, but she lead me down a hallway of the castle, and we got onto an elevator. The ride was uncomfortably silent, and the princess was fidgeting an awful lot.

We jerked to a halt, and the princess lead me down to a dungeon. She stopped outside of a cell being held with a green, magical barrier. Inside of it was a...bucket of grass?

"Lawn clippings?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Did Finn...tell you about Fern?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Who is that?"

She pat a chair next to the door, and we sat down as she explained, "Last year, Finn helped Jake revive a friend using time travel. Except part of the plan was that he had to encounter a time duplicate clone of himself. The contact turned his clone into a sword that encased his own heroic spirit."

"So the sword has another Finn soul!" I exclaimed.

"It did." She frowned. "However, Finn, back before this happened, had a grass curse placed upon him, and it was always kept on his right arm. One day, the sword was broken, and the grass curse took Finn's entire right arm to fully possess the Finn Sword. The two were able to combine into a green copy of Finn, made of plant material, with nature powers. I'm paraphrasing a whole bunch of in between stuff, but that's the short version of it."

"You know, I was wondering how he lost the arm, but I figured it was rude to ask." I said, shrugging. "Is that bucket the copy?"

She nodded. "The grass copy took the name Fern, and Finn loved him like a brother, and tried to teach him to be a hero. But Fern's curse overtook him, and he grew jealous that even with all his powers, he could never be the hero Finn was. He didn't learn from his mistakes like Finn does. Fern turned to evil, and Finn was forced to kill him during the war."

I tilted my head. "Then the grass clippings...?"

Bubblegum frowned. "Because plant matter is resilient, I can still detect both the duplicate Finn soul...as well as the grass curse, being alive and sentient in that pile of clippings. I collected it for research, but...I think we can use it to revive our Finn. But there's a catch."

"There's always a catch," I snarked.

"I would need to zap you into the mindscape of Fern and beat the crud out of the curse. It looks like a little squid-spider thing. If you can seperate the two of them long enough, I can pull you and the soul out. But I can't guaranty what you'll see in there," Bubblegum warned, "so I know I can't make you do this. But it might be the only way we can save Finn."

I swallowed and sighed. I looked down at my fists. I've fought monsters of all kind, stared death in the face, had my own soul stolen...a grass curse? I can handle it.

"Finn dropped everything to help me, so I owe him just as much. Hook me up, I'll do it," I told her.

She nodded and slid open a hidden wall panel next to the door.

I stepped back in shock, "You already have everything ready for this?"

She shrugged, "not all of my science is on the up and up, Marco," explained Bubblegum, "but it's all done for the benefit of my people."

As she hit a few buttons, a helmet was lowered in the cell, and placed itself onto the bucket, still connected to the ceiling via a telescopic pillar and wire. Princess Bubblegum took a helmet out of the panel, also with wires attached, and handed it to me.

"Whenever you're ready, Marco," she said, with a small smile.

I took a deep breath and plopped the metal helmet onto my head. "No time like the present."

I blinked, and was already in an empty, black void. I could hear Princess Bubblegum's voice all around me, saying, "Good luck, Marco Diaz."

Off in the distance, I could see a green glow, not unlike the one of the Lich. But if I had to associate a color with a grass curse - whatever that was - I figure it'd probably be green. I charged towards it, heart pounding, ready to strike.

And I skidded to a halt as I came upon what must be Fern - a green version of Finn, made of grass, laying on the ground, weeping. He stopped when he realized I was there, and sat up. He took off the green bear hat, revealing long green weeds with flowers and mushrooms growing out of them.

"She's not very subtle, you know." Fern said to me, sounding more depressed than evil.

"Uh...?" I began, not sure where to even go with this conversation.

"I heard everything." Fern explained, "Finn - the other me. The real me. He's in trouble."

I nodded. "We need your help."

He shook his head. "You don't need my help. I'm not even really real, Marco. I'm just two things, mish-mashed together. You need to beat the grass curse off of me. I won't stop you, but he's not going to make it easy."

I clenched my fists. "I'll do whatever I have to do. The Finn I know is my friend. I need to help him."

Fern tilted his head and gave me a sad smile. "You know, that's kind of why I wanted to kill and replace Finn. I thought he was so perfect, and I was such a screw up. But you know what?"

"What?" I asked.

Fern looked up into the void. I looked up to, to see this mindscape had turned into a beautiful sky. "Finn's a screw up too." Fern laughed. "We've messed up so much. But we always did our best for our friends, and in turn they never let us down. I guess I felt like I never had those friends. Except Finn. He always tried. Even when I turned out to be rotten."

I frowned and sat down next to Fern. "From what the Princess told me, I think Finn just wishes he could have heard you say that."

Fern nodded. "I'm going to give up this form, Marco. Then you will see the grass curse for what it is, leeching onto Finn's - onto my soul. Get ready."

I stood up again, bowed to Fern out of respect, and took a defensive stance. "I'm ready."

Fern frowned and shed a tear. "Good luck."

The grass fell off of Fern, revealing a drooling, blank-eyed Finn, with a green squid-spider thing sucking on his chest. I screamed and roundhouse kicked what I could only assume was the grass curse.

The squid spider, landed on all eight of its feet and lunged at me through the air, as Finn's body laid in a heap. I chopped down onto it, but it ducked under me and scuttled across my feet, weaving some sort of gooey thread across them, sticking me in place. In a panic I fell back and he began to weave a cocoon over the top of my legs.

"What are you doing?!" I screamed.

The grass curse, calmly speaking in Fern's voice, replied, "you messed with the wrong grass demon, buddy. You're my puppet now," as he continued to weave up my legs.

"O-o-o-oh no, not today!" I yelled, sitting bolt upright, grabbing the demon off of me with all my strength, headbutting him, and then punching him across the void. Adrenaline pumping through me, I kicked free of the cocoon to see the grass curse still charging towards me. He lunged for me, but I was able to squat down and leap over him, rolling forward and turning to see he was coming back again. I ducked to the right as the squid lunged, snatching him from the air, tossing him up, and utilized a spinning backhand to send it skidding across the void.

"Just a bit longer!" I heard Princess Bubblegum say in my head.

However, the grass curse must have heard it too, as it turned on a tentacle and began scuttling back to Finn. "Oh no you don't!" I shouted, charging and diving as I tackled the curse across the ground. It splurted cocoon out of its rear, but I rolled us away from Finn and kept moving so it couldn't use it to pin me down. I turned myself on top of the curse and chopped down onto it as hard as I could. It howled in pain, but it's back turned in to a sat of jaws and chomped down onto my hand. I shook it as hard as I could, throwing it across the void...

And then I was done. I blinked as I realized I was back in the candy dungeon, and Princess Bubblegum was hugging me tightly, holding a jar of a vibrant, blue ball of light.

"You did it, Marco!" She cried, excitedly, showing me the jar. "I harnessed Finn's soul energy so we can revive him! Quickly, follow me."

She handed me the jar, and began to pull me back to the elevator.

I looked at the jar of soul energy in my hands. I could hardly believe I pulled that off. But something about this jar felt like it was calling me. Once, on the elevator, I squeezed my eyes shut to center myself.

"Hey...Marco, right?"

My eyes shot open. I heard Finn's voice, in my own head. But...how? I looked down to the jar, seeing the blue orb dart excitedly about the glass container, as if trying to get my attention.

"You can hear me, I hope."

I nodded to the orb, feeling a bit silly, but the voice answered me, saying, "Oh, good. Look, I know...I know as Fern I made some pretty math decisions. And...I can't blame it all on the grass curse. But please...please tell Finn...your Finn, that I'm sorry. And to keep living. For me, and for Fern."

"I will," I whispered to the jar.

"You'll what?' Princess Bubblegum asked me, causing me to jump slightly.

"Oh...nothing," I replied. I smiled to her. "Let's go fix Finn."

She nodded, and as we stopped at the top floor, we rushed back to the lab. From the window, I could see the same blackened skies and green lightning spreading across the land. As we burst into the lab, Bubblegum tore the jar from my hands, ripped it open, grabbed the orb, and unceremoniously shoved it into Finn's mouth.

I blinked and scratched the back of my head. I thought this would be more...scientific.

Still, Finn swallowed the orb, and his body began to glow, but otherwise, he didn't move. I looked at the princess, the confusion evident on my face.

She sighed, and answered, "The soul takes time to recharge. Time we may not have, unless Huntress Wizard is okay."

I bit my lip. "I hope so. Sounds like you guys have lost enough people."

A device beeped on the Princess' person, and she pulled out a small rader; I recognized it as the same one she had given Finn, and it showed Star's magical signature. "That should be your friend. Please, go greet them. I will monitor Finn so he can get back in the fight."

\---

And as I finished telling all of this to Star and Jake, Jake's face fell, if only for a moment.

"I need to be with Finn." He said, trying his best to keep his normal voice.

"Go." Star told him, grabbing his hand, and using two more arms to grab mine as she was still in butterfly mode. "We'll go find Huntress Wizard and the Lich. Right, Marco?"

I nodded and smiled to her, before turning my attention to Jake. "Bring him to us as soon as you can, Jake. We're counting on you."

Jake saluted. "You got it. One order of butt kicking bros, coming up"

He stretched off to the castle, and Star portaled us past the Candy Kingdom barrier. Once in the Grasslands, I pointed Star towards the forest where Huntress Wizard had chased the Lich.

"Let's get weird, Marco!" Star yelled, determined as I've ever heard her.

"Let's get wild!" I yelled back.


	10. Artemis, The Huntress Wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Succumbing to Magical Madness and Sadness, Huntress Wizard hunts down the Lich. Can she defeat Lich alone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's look through the eyes of madness.

\---  
Huntress Wizard's Point of View - Wizard Madness  
\---

NyahAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It feels...IT FEELS SO GOOD to be RUSHING through the trees, LEAPING from branch to branch in pursuit of my MOST FOUL, MOST HATED HATED HATED PREY!

This thing, THIS DIRTY, WRETCHED BEAST...hurt my most beloved FINN! My pack-mate! This, THIS WAS UNFORGIVABLE! No rest, NO REST for Artemis until THE LICH was a PINCUSHION for my arrows!

I connected my legs to the tree branch I was on, turning them to wood, feeling the roots of the forest. It felt AMAZING to be connected to NATURE after being CRAMPED IN THAT AWFUL CASTLE!

Or...maybe it was a nice castle. Who knows?! Hahahahaha. It doesn't matter! IT DOESN'T MATTER! Nothing matters! Nothing except Finn and VENGEANCE. FINNGEANCE! FINNGEANCE WILL ME FINE! From the tree roots, I could feel the evil presence of the Lich fleeing into the forest to the west.

I grinned as I ripped some bark from the tree I was on, magically turning it into a flurry of arrows. The Lich was mine. My hunt. My kill.

I dashed from branch to branch, the trees telling me I was close, whispering the secrets of nature and the forest to me.

I crouched from a tall tree, looking down at the form of STAR'S POSSESSED, FOUL, WRETCHED GRANDMOTHER under me on the beaten path.

"Such dark power," The Lich said, examining Eclipsa's wand. "Surely there is a better way to channel such destructive power."

The Lich lurched forward unexpectedly, momentarily her eyes returning to normal, the goat horns shrinking slightly.

"No!" Cried what I could only assume was Eclipsa?! NOT THE LICH? WHERE IS MY KILL? "I won't let you into my memories!"

Was she RESISTING THE FOUL BEAST?! Surely the LICH NEEDED TO PERISH!

Eclipsa's eyes reverted back to the SICKLY GREEN, NOT LIKE ANYTHING IN MY PURE FOREST. She cackled ominously. "You are strong, Queen of Darkness. But I will unlock your secrets in time. I will need a true form."

"YOU'LL UNLOCK ONLY DEATH!" I screamed to the heavens as I pelted the Lich with a volley of arrows, knocking her to the ground. I landed in front of the BEAST, and laughed, "Looks like you're as crazy as me! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The Lich's eyes, THE LYING EYES, turned back to Eclipsa's, but I used an arrow to break a horn off the Lich's head. He yelled in pain, the deep, evil yell of a beast that WAS TAINTING MY FOREST.

"That won't work on ME!" I screeched, arrows floating around my head, "My love, my Finn, may be that trusting... neeheheheHAHAHAHAHA," I cackled, "But I'M OUT FOR BLOOD, LICH!"

The Lich blasted at me with the wand, but I flipped over the beam and shot more arrows at the Lich. She opened a portal with the wand, and the arrows flew through them. Suddenly a portal opened behind me, so I spun in the air to avoid the arrows, but one lodged itself in my shoulder. As I landed, I saw the confident smirk of the Lich vanished as she looked upon my own psychotic smile. I pulled the arrows out of my shoulder and licked the blood off it, smiling widely

"This one," I breathed, holding the arrow, "this is the one I'll kill you with."

The Lich scowled, turned and took off through the trees, hovering above the ground for speed.

"YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM ME, CREATURE OF DARKNESS!" I howled as I ripped open the grass and traveled beneath it at high speed.

Once I had gotten myself far enough in front of the Lich, I morphed into a tree, hiding in plain sight. As the Lich approached, a I readied myself for an attack, by they blasted me before I could even transform. I skid across the forest floor, rolling onto all fours, hissing.

"You think you're the only one who can see the truth, Wizard?" The Lich growled, wand pointed at me.

"GOOD," I screamed, "DON'T MAKE THIS TOO EASY!"

I charged forward flinging arrows, but like before the FOUL CREATURE used her wand to deflect them. I tried to stab the Lich with my blood-soaked arrow, but she just caught me, levitated me in a flip, and slammed me onto my back. But I FLUNG the arrow at the Lich's face. She jerked her head back, but not in time, and I laughed.

"HAHAHAHA, THE ARROW! IT'S UP YOUR NOSE!" I cried in glee. "I FINALLY GOT TO DO IT."

Blood gushing from the Lich's nose, she grabbed me with her magic and threw me as hard as she could through the canopy of trees. But before she could, I grabbed the Lich's horn; a trophy for my collection. IT FEELS LIKE FLYING, THE ADRENALINE OF FALLING TO MY DEATH! IT'S SO ADDICTING! I COULD GET USED TO SUCH A RUSH!

Of course, I easily survive just the same way I did last time. I turned into a log before hitting the ground, bouncing and rolling along the forest until I crashed into a tree. I then snapped back into my normal form, cracking my neck. I grabbed the Lich's horn and sniffed. A LITTLE FALL WON'T DO ME IN!

I grinned. I HAD THE SCENT! I laughed to myself. "You can't escape me, my prey!"

I took back to the trees, following my nose until I closed in on the Lich. To my UTTER AND COMPLETE RAGE, I could see that the Lich had used Eclipsa's wand to heal the wounds I had given her while I was away, but she could not fix the hole in her nose, nor the horn. PROOF OF MY BATTLE WITH HER! THE MARKS OF MY FURY! I had to kill her at once for the damage to stick. THIS COURSE OF EVENTS IS TRULY UNACCEPTABLE!

THIS CALLS FOR ULTIMATE STEEEAAAAAAALLLTH, I realized, crouching down to the branch and sneaking closer towards them. I approached, the smile on my face growing, and I held in my ecstatic giggles of the hunt.

"Show yourself, Forest Hunter," the Lich commanded.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh they're going to get it! HOW DOES HE KNOW I'M HERE?!

I produced arrows from all the surrounding trees, and rocketed them to the Lich. She produced a green, translucent barrier, blocking all the arrows, then dispersed them across the forest. WHAT A PARTY POOPER!

"Cheap tricks will not fell me, child of the forest."

Cheap tricks? DID HE JUST CALL MY HUNTING PROWESS CHEAP?!

Enraged, I summoned some vines and roots from the depth of the earth, and called on them burst forth and wrap themselves around the legs of the Lich. The Lich grunted in frustration and I dove from the tree, BOOTING THE FOUL CREATURE ACROSS THE JAW. Finally, the beast dropped its wand, and I snatched it off the ground. In my hand, it transformed into a wooden dagger with a rounded end.

S-s-such POWER! My eyes widened in ecstasy as a surge of magical energy flowed through EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING! I've never felt such POWER! I COULD HUNT ANYTHING LIKE THIS!

"Dear, you are making a horrible mistake!" Came a voice that was vaguely familiar. I looked over and saw the Eclipsa woman seemed to be in possession of her body, clutching her cut nose in pain.

"No, YOUR MISTAKE WAS THINKING I'D FALL FOR THAT ACT, LICH!" I roared, as I prepared more arrows.

"No, please listen!" Eclipsa begged, "The Lich isn't possessing me, it's possessing THE WAND!"

I snapped out of my madness as her words hit me. Oh dang. Oh dang. I looked at the wand in my hand to see the green gas of the Lich oozing out. From the gas, the Lich's skeletal fist appeared and smashed me across the face. I was thrown across the woods, dropping the wand and crashing into a tree, snapping it in half.

I groaned in pain. Not only was I acting like a dingus, I almost killed Star's not-grandma. I painfully pulled myself out from under the fallen tree, to see the wand had already flown back into Eclipsa's hands, taken control of her again, blasted her free from the roots, and had taken off deeper into the forest.

Ugh. I can't believe I let myself succumb to wizard madness. Still, not being bat-crud insane made me worry for Finn all over again. But if anyone can fix him, it's Princess Bubblegum. Moreso, now that I had my senses, I realized the Lich seemed to know where she was going. Was I being tricked, or led somewhere? This required real hunting. Not this...mad bloodlust.

I leapt back to a tree and inhaled deeply, getting the scent of the Lich. Good; now I had a trail. Time to do this the right way.

I rushed along the branches, making sure to be silent as the scent grew stronger. Hidden in the leaves, I regained sight of the Lich, floating through the woods, looking left for something in particular. I couldn't tell you what, though.

I wasn't quite sure how to attack this. If the wand is made of Mithril, attacking it will do no good, only magic or items made of Mithril can destroy it. Even if I break it, Lich could just move into Eclipsa. And killing Eclipsa won't solve anything. Especially if wand-Lich can just snap back to someone else.

But being an inanimate object doesn't seem like something Lich would want to do, he'd need a carrier. Whatever his plan is - this elaborate plan of possessing Star, then the wand and her not-grandma...what could his endgame be?

Maybe his own body? One more sturdy than a skeleton man?

I contemplated this as I crept through the trees; however, the forest was beginning to thin out a little. I may need to travel through the grass to continue in stealth. I landed silently on the forest floor, sneaking through the bushes, maintaining my line of sight with the Lich. Man, this is just like the times I would follow Finn around for awhile. Watching him fight that evil bear really made my -

Er...focus, Artemis. The Lich finally came to a stop at the edge of a murky pond. My eyes widened - that was the Wellspring of the Forest - a center of magical energy, and rather well-hidden from the knowledge of Ooo. Not even Bubblegum knew about it. Good thing too, she'd probably drain it for research.

"Wh-what are you going to do to me?" Eclipsa asked. She was feigning confidence, but the Lich terrified even the Queen of Darkness.

I could hear the Lich answer her from the wand. "I did not need all your knowledge, your highness. In all your spells, all I needed, was just one. And I found it before you could even resist me."

Eclipsa dipped her wand into the water and chanted, "In blackest night, in foulest day, I aim to raise the one of decay. I give my life to raise another, to tear this broken world asunder. To end all life, I am the witch who will rebirth the ominous Lich."

The pond burst into a sickly green glow, and the wand began to float above it. Eclipsa herself turned, back to the pond, and held her arms out to fall backwards into it, in tears.

"Nope!" I yelled, sprinting from my hiding spot, scooping the queen into my arms, and dashing back towards the entrance of the forest. "Nope, nope, nope."

"Cutting it close on that rescue, dear," Eclipsa muttered into my neck.

As I sprinted, I managed to reply, "Finn says I have a flair for the dramatic. I don't see it."

Blasts of green energy came shooting from every direction of the forest after us.

"You should have let him take me, darling," Eclipsa said, sadly.

I shook my head. "You have someone who wants to see you."

"You don't understand," she objected, "he's more powerful this way! Let him take control of me, and you may have a chance!"

Her plea caused me to slow, just for a moment, but it was all the Lich needed to blast me in the back, sending both of us to the ground. I was taking a beating today.

I struggled to get back to my feet, the events of the day catching up to me, but the Lich spoke, low-voiced, and commanded, "Fall."

I collapsed to the ground at the sound of Lich's voice. "Ugh..."

Finn...Finn warned me about this. I opened my eyes, but only saw darkness. The Lich's outline surrounded the wand in a silhouette.

"You could take form any time..." I grumbled, "Why do this?"

"This body of bones is frail, wizard of the forest," the Lich replied, approaching me. "I need a body of magic power to fully eliminate life in this land. The Queen of Darkness can provide that power."

He stepped closer to me, and I shivered. He made the air around me cold, and the leaves on the tree began to shrivel. "But you, forest wizard...you are a being of immense power and magic. Perhaps...you would do."

"No..." I replied crawling away.

"Lich!" Yelled a a voice from not far. The forest came back to view. I looked up to see Eclipsa back at the pond. "Leave her be. I'm who you want."

With that, Eclipsa jumped back into the green pond water. "NO!" I shouted, trying to get back to my feet, but the wand-Lich smacked me back down before flying into the pond with Eclipsa.

The pond exploded with green energy, and I covered my eyes. This was bad. This was way bad.

I pulled myself to my feet. I had failed. I leaned against a tree to catch my breath. But it looks like that was a mistake too, because the Lich began to pull himself ashore from the pond. But instead of an arm of bones or Eclipsa's arm, a muscled, veiny black arm pulled itself onto shore. The Lich stood, a vaguely humanoid outline of shining, black skin, with glowing green eyes, and the goat horns...although one was still broken off by my earlier arrow. Ten feet tall, and bulging with muscles, he looked like a demon statue come to life.

He gave me a crooked grin and looked at the magic wand in his hands, now a sickly green, dagger-like instrument with an arb at the end. He touched the ground with it, and in an instant, all the trees within a hundreds of yards died, sapping me of my energy, and I dropped to my knees.

"Does this hurt, forest child?" He asked, tauntingly. "You draw your power from these trees, don't you?"

I tried to fling some arrows at him, but they just bounced off, harmlessly.

"You can not hurt me now, child. You put up an admirable fight, so I commend you." The Lich gloated, drawing near to me.

"I'm sorry, Finn." I whispered.

But as Lich drew near, his face twitched upwards, and I heard a familiar voice shout, "Narwhal Blast!" A ray of blue light and...narwhals? The ray came from behind me, and hit the Lich, though he was only pushed back a few feet as he stumbled. However, while he was unbalanced, Marco landed in front of me, and leapt off the ground, kicking the Lich in the face and knocking him down. He turned back to me and helped me up.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Just a bit winded, thanks." I replied. I grabbed him and dove out of the way into a gang of dead trees as the Lich blasted at us.

"He's fast," Marco muttered.

I nodded, gathering my strength and leaping into a branch, but before I landed, he blasted if off the tree. I shifted, and attached myself to the tree itself, hurling arrows, hoping to knock the wand out of Lich's hands. But with a wave of his hand my arrows disintegrated. Star flew in close range and unleashed a, "Rainbow Fist Punch," however, the Lich barely flinched at the impact before blasting her back into Marco.

"Look around you, and tell me what you really see." The Lich said, voice raised, gesturing to the green lighting clouds and dead trees. "I am never ending. I am eternal. That is the difference between us. There is no one to save you now."

\---

In the heart of the Candy Kingdom, deep in the castle's walls, the eyes of Finn Mertens shot open, and he gasped. Jake, who had been in a trance next to him, snapped to attention.

"Finn, are you okay?!" Jake asked.

Finn sprang out of the bed and grabbed his sword and backpack from the table next to him.

"We need to get to the forest, Jake," He answered, running for the door, "now."


	11. Finn, The Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn and Jake race to aid Star, Marco, and Huntress Wizard in the final showdown with the Lich. Can they defeat the beast and save Eclipsa?

\---  
Finn's Point of View  
\---  
I've ridden Jake to the forest a ton of times - to visit Artemis, to have bro time or a swim, to just get away from stress, for missions - but this may be the first time I've never enjoyed it. His gigantic feet crashing down to the ground as we galloped towards the swirling green lightning clouds, my heart raced.

"So what exactly happened in this wacky dream of yours?" Jake asked.

"It wasn't a dream, Jake!" I argued, "ever since Huntress Wizard and I summoned the spirit of the forest together, I can sometimes hear when she calls out to me in the forest! The Lich fully merged with Eclipsa! We have to stop him now before it's too late!"

"You got a plan, man?"

"Word." I replied. "Let's do this..." I leaned in to his ear to explain.

As I laid out my plan, Jake tensed up a bit. "You sure about this, Finn?" He asked.

"Man, I haven't been sure of anything since Marco and Star landed in our pond, just let us down here." I replied.

Jake shrunk down at the edge of the forest, and miniaturized down before hopping into my backpack. "Be careful, bro," he whispered.

I trembled. This was it. No more running away, no more diversions. I ran as fast as I could towards the pond I saw in my vision.

I won't lie; I was secretly hoping I had been wrong, and it had just been a nightmare, that my visions of the Lich sapping the life from like a mile of trees had just been a bad dream.

But, it wasn't. I ran up to the scene of the Lich, and my friends desperately trying to hold him off. Marco jumped for a sweet, leaping kick at the Lich's dome, but in one motion, Lich grabbed Marco's leg and swung him into Huntress Wizard effortlessly. Lich blasted at Star with his donked up evil wand, but she managed to roll under, and aimed her own wand at him, yelling, "SPIDER WITH A TOP HAT BLAST!"

A tiny spider leaped from her wand and began shoot the Lich with a billion lasers, but Lich just blasted him, leaving a tiny scorch mark on the ground. Lich blasted at Star again, and she did her best with a pink blast back, but she was easily pushed back and the rays exploded, sending her into a tree. Her arms were already cut up and burnt.

Huntress Wizard shoved Marco off of her, and flung arrows at the Lich, but they just bounced off him harmlessly. Lich aimed for her, and my adrenaline kicked in. I took a flying leap over the top of Artemis, then held up my sword, which, thankfully, still absorbed the magic...although it pushed me back, skidding across the grass, sword vibrating intensely.

"Finn Mertens," The Lich seethed with a rueful laugh, "you never cease to amaze."

"YOU NEVER CEASE TO SUCK!" I yelled. "HANDS OFF THE GF, YA BUTT!"

I swung at Lich, but he blocked with his wand, and punched me right in the ribs, sending me into some shrubs nearby. He went to blast at me, but this time Artemis saved me, diving at me, grabbing, and rolling along the ground so both of us could dodge. Marco jumped on the Lich's back, trying to wrap his arms around his neck. Artemis and I charged; I slashed at the Lich's knee, she kicked at his other one. Lich stumbled back, swinging wildly to grab Marco, who kept swinging his body just out of reach.

Star planted herself in front of the Lich, pointed her wand at him with a twirl, and yelled, "Warnicorn Stampede!"

From her wand shot a heard of some manly-buff-looking unicorns, so Huntress Wizard and I bailed out of the way, and Marco kicked off the Lich's back just in time as the fiend got buried and a storm of hooves and horns. The Lich had been knocked down and trampled, but he was already getting up. I ran forward with a battle cry and slashed the side of his head; even with a magic sword, it only chipped him like a rock as he blasted me square in the chest, sending me flying into Star, my skin burning. That'd need some cyclops goo later.

Lich had gotten up, and Marco drop kicked him in the knee. It didn't seem to phase the Lich, as he merely kicked Marco away into the woods. While he was distracted, Huntress Wizard leaped into the air kicked the wand, but it was too entrenched in the Lich's grasp to be moved, and he blasted her into the trees instead.

Star and I had gotten up. "Go high," she told me. I nodded and charged, and I flipped high into the air. As I did, she shouted, "MEGA NARWHAL BLAST," shooting under me. The blast hit Lich in the stomach, and he doubled forward. I slashed downward, but the Lich turned his head. My sword still managed to hack off his other horn, and he screamed in pain. A green shockwave shot out of him that knocked both me and Star dozens of feet away.

I'm not sure how far away from the Lich I landed, but I rolled onto my back to see he was already standing over me. I swung my sword just in time to deflect a blast of magic, but Lich shifted his wand into a sword and tried to plunge it into my throat. I held him at bay with my sword, but it took all my robo arm strength not to get impaled.

"Tell me, Finn, as an ordinary human in a land of extraordinary beings," The Lich growled, the hatred very evident in his voice, "how do you continue to do this? How does someone so weak continue to best me across the dimensions?! ACROSS ALL OF SPACE -TIME!"

"Because Lich," I yelled, pushing back against his wand, "YOU ALWAYS SMELL LIKE DOG BUNS!"

On his cue, Jake grew his, ahem, rear end cheeks to massive sizes outside of my backpack, and clapped them against the Lich's head, letting out a fart. Lich roared in anger and confusion, but grabbed Jake and threw him - and me, since Jake was holding onto my pack, high into the air as Jake retreated to my backpack.

The distraction had bought Star enough time to change into her golden form. From the sky, I saw her charge up the wand, and then unleash a massive tidal wave of golden energy that washed over the Lich. The inky-black hardened skin melted off him, leaving a pulsating, red, muscly mass, though it still stood, a shambling mess, point his damaged wand at her form as she collapsed to the ground. That must be the power Moon was talking about.

But we weren't done yet!

"NOW DUDE!" I yelled. Jake poked his upper half from my pack, stretched hundreds of arms going all directions downward, and grabbed onto the sides of any tree he could get ahold of.

The Lich shifted his wand to me and for a split second I saw my life flash before my eyes. But before he could blast me, Marco and Huntress Wizard dived from the woods and grabbed the Lich's legs. Star flew up in her golden form and blasted the Lich in the face with a giant beam of golden magic once more, which flattened him onto his back.

Jake slingshot me back down to Ooo, and I plunged my sword as hard as I could into the Lich's chest - but even his red under skin was rock-hard, only the tip of my sword went in. I pushed against the hilt with all my might to try and impale him all the way while the Lich roared in pain.

Lich went to blast me, but Jake leapt from my pack, wrapped himself around the Lich's arm and head, and then wrapped himself around about six different trees in the distance so the Lich couldn't move.

Suddenly, Marco and Artemis grabbed my hands and were pushing against the hilt of my sword with, and we slowly began to drive the blade deeper into the Lich's head as he screamed in anguish.

He went to grab my foot, but before he could grab me, Star, in her golden form, grabbed on to the hilt of my sword with all six hands, joined by a giant fist being shot out of Jake's belly, encasing all of our hands and joining the effort. Together, the five of us pushed the sword completely through the heart of the Lich. He disintegrated into a pile of ash. No evil laughter. No green gas to be absorbed by someone else; he was dead. The five of us collapsed onto the grass. I looked out from the bottom of the dogpile we landed in. The sky had begun to clear.

It was over...we did it. We slew the Lich.

"Hey, good job guys," I said, struggling to catch my breath, "but I can't feel my legs. Please get off."

Everyone did, except Huntress Wizard, who rolled me over, and gave me a big hug and kiss on the cheek, which was a bit embarrassing in front of everyone as they chuckled at the sight. She helped me to my feet.  
"How much did you see?" Artemis asked me, as everyone dusted themselves off.

"Just the Lich coming out of the pond," I assured her.

She sighed. "Good," she admitted, "I...lost it a bit after the Lich blasted your soul."

I pulled her in for a tight squeeze. "I'm harder to murdelerdel than that, hun."

"What are they talking about?" Marco whispered to Jake.

"Huntress Wizard's weird powers let her send visions to him when she's in the forest, don't worry about it." Jake explained.

"Star!" A voice came from the ground. It sounded regal.

"Eclipsa?!" Star yelled, running to the wand that the Lich had been using, now reverted back to the umbrella form. She picked it up and began to cry softly, as a little hologram of Eclipsa appeared above it, "Eclipsa, how can we save you-"

"I can't hear you Star," the hologram said, "I've recorded this before the Lich could take full hold of me."

Star's face fell, and the tears began to fall, but she held it together as Eclipsa's message played.

"I knew the Lich was going to try and sacrifice me," Eclipsa's message explained, "You see, the Lich is involved with magic so foul, I never wanted to touch. But I knew what spell he was after, because it was the only one I wanted to study, in the off chance I had to revive Globby." She let out a rueful laugh, "Guess that one bit me in the butt, huh? Star, I know...I know you'll be able to stop him, but I also know he'll be more powerful, but more vulnerable in my body. So if you have to kill that body, please know, I understand. Thank you for freeing me. And Star?"

There was a pause. "I'm proud of you," Eclipsa's message finished, and the wand changed to Star's form, leaving Star holding two identical wands.

I frowned as Star sobbed and turned into Marco's waiting arms. She collapsed into him and he held her tightly. We stopped the Lich, but we couldn't save Eclipsa like we wanted. At my expression, Artemis grabbed my hand, and I met her gaze. She gave me a small smile, and said, quietly, "hey...you did good, beau."

Jake shrank a little and climbed on to my shoulders. "Yeah, you did good, Finn."

"You too, man," I replied, fist-pounding him, "And you rocked out there, Huntwiz."

The three of us approached Star and Marco. Marco opened his eyes at us from the hug and I noticed he was crying too. Eclipsa must have meant something special to these two, even if I didn't fully understand the backstory between her and my two friends. His eyes met mine and he sniffled, closing them again to hold Star. Not knowing what else to do, I walked up and hugged both of them. Huntress Wizard did too, and Jakes stretched his arms around the group of us. We all embraced tightly, as the weight of the fight hung over the air.

We all stayed like that for awhile before Star began to gently break away, causing us all to back up. "Thank you," she sniffled, wiping her eyes, "all of you. I can't...I can't thank you guys enough."

"Dude," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. "You don't gotta thank us. We're tight now. Buds for life."

"Homies help homies, always," Jake added, and Huntress Wizard nodded and said, "for sure. We're a pack."

Star giggled a bit as she wiped a tear, "I don't think I could have landed in the pond of a cooler pair of brothers. Thanks guys."

Marco nodded as he sniffled. "You guys are the best."

"So what are you going to do with the extra wand?" Huntress Wizard asked.

Star stared down at her hand, then looked to Marco, who shrugged. "I um...I was told we might need to destroy it," she replied, "but I have an idea on what I could do instead."

There was an awkward pause before an idea popped into my brain meats. "Hey, look, I know...things didn't end how we wanted. We lost some stuff. We both had some wars...but...we made some cool friends. And we won...so...why don't I throw us a party on top of our treehouse tomorrow night? For you guys! Bring yo friends, boiiiii!"

"Are you sure?" Marco asked.

I looked at the four of them, all of them giving me some curious looks. "Yeah...we all could use some fun, right? This has been a mondo crazy couple of days. Let's give our brains some good time vibes."

Star and Marco exchanged looks, but smiles slowly spread across their faces.

"You know what?" Marco replied. "We're in. Meet you tomorrow at eight?"

"Sounds good!" I said, giving him a fist pound. He took out his scissors and cut a hole back to Mewni, both of them promising to see us tomorrow.

I took out a little hand vacuum from my backpack and sucked up the Lich's ashes, "Can't be too careful. Probably want to get these to PB. You coming Jake?"

Jake scratched the back of his head...he looked like something was on his mind. "Actually, can I go see Lady and the kids? I need to talk to them about some stuff."

"Oh," I answered, "totally man."

He waved and grew large, heading out of the forest the opposite direction of the candy kingdom.

As he walked away, Huntress Wizard grabbed me and kissed me, a little bit passionately, and hugged me again.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

She held on tighter. "I haven't lost myself to wizard madness in so long. But when I saw you like that...I lost it. I'm just glad you're okay."

I held her back. "That's why we look out for each other. And part of why I wanted to do this party is one big hurrah before I move in with you."

She smooched me again. "You sure you're ready?" She asked.

I nodded. "We both know I'm totally in love with you, Artemis."

She turned a deep red. "You've never said it before."

I laughed. "You always did for me."

She nuzzled against me a bit. "I love you too. You butthead. Are you going to be okay taking those to PB? I gotta survey the forest damage."

I nodded and pulled away from her, feeling better than I had all day. "Just come early tomorrow, okay? I want you to be there when I tell Jake the news."

She smiled, and dove into the trees.I turned and began a peaceful walk to the kingdom. There was lots of rebuilding to do...but maybe, just maybe, things would go back to normal for awhile.

\---  
THE NEXT DAY  
\---

I was getting the tables and speakers set up on our rooftop. This place seemed a little lonely without Fern...but...ever since I woke up yesterday, part of me felt at peace with everything that happened. For some reason, I had this weird urge to ask Marco about it? I'd get to that tonight if I could.

"Knock knock!" Huntress Wizard yelled, climbing up the ladder to the roof, "I brought snacks. Like ones people will eat, like chips, no animal hearts" she added, dropping a few bags of chips and pretzels on a table, "I did put a rabbit in your freezer though, I was thinking you could make some of that stew later?"

"I love cookin' for my good-lookin'," I sang at her. She laughed and gave me a light slap on the tush in response, which never fails to make me go red.

"You two are gross and adorable and it's weird," Jake replied, stretching up from the floor below. He had been avoiding contact with me all day.

Huntress Wizard and I exchanged looks, and nodded. I walked up to Jake, and opened my mouth, but at the same time, we both said, "Hey man, I need to tell you something."

We both blinked and laughed. "You go first, Finn," he said. He sounded sure, so I didn't fight him.

I gulped and stammered, but Artemis held my hand, and I calmed a bit. "So um...I think...no, I know, I'm going to move in with H dubs soon. We talked about it, and I want to try some of that forest-living. So maybe Lady can move in?"

Jake gaped. "NO. WAY!"

Before either of us could say anything else, Jake swelled up, hugging us both and lifting us both and spinning. "MY LITTLE BABY BOY FINN IS A GROWN MAN!"

I laughed, "put us down, you butt. What did you want to tell me?"

He set me down and smiled. "Well, I was going to tell you, I was moving in with Lady."

"Oh dude, is that all?" I asked.

He shook his head, a little sad. "Not exactly...I think...I think I'm going to kind of retire from adventures, Finn."

"What?!" I replied, shocked. I looked at Artemis; even she had raised her eyebrows.

"Dude, I'm like nearing fifty," Jake explained, "some of this growing stuff starts to hurt after awhile."

He hugged me and continued, "if you still ever really need me, I'll be there. You'll always be my best friend, Finn. I just want to focus on playing viola and Lady. And we think Charlie may be pregnant!"

I smiled, ecstatically. "Haha, okay grandpa...just...promise you won't be a boring old golf fogie."

"PFFT I HATE GOLF, FINN!" Jake replied, and he and I laughed. "So you're cool with this?"

I nodded. "Totally man." I put my arm around Artemis and added, "H Dubs is a pro adventurer anyway. And...you'll always be my best friend too, bro."

"I am pretty great," she bragged, though she was blushing a bit.

He frowned a bit. "I am going to miss this, Finn. The treehouse. The adventures...it's been the best life a dog could ask for."

Artemis and I smiled at each other and hugged Jake, for like what, the fourth time this minute? It was one of those kind of talks. "Dude," I told him, "it's not going to change anything between us. We're bros. Best friends. I'll always be here for you."

He laughed and ruffled my hat. "Same, you weirdo."

\---  
Star's Point of View  
\---

I had a party to go to in two hours. And I LOVE a good party...but, I had to do something first.

I knocked on Tom's door in the underworld castle. He answered, and didn't look too thrilled to see me.

"Hey Starship," he said, neutrally. 'You uh...wanted to talk?"

I nodded and stepped in, playing with my hair nervously. "Yeah...I uh...wanted to say thanks for bringing the wand. I know it wasn't easy after what I said."

He nodded, "I guess I shouldn't have been so wrapped up in relationship stuff. But I can change-"

"Tom, don't." I answered. "I think you've tried to change enough for me, don't you?"

He paused, and seemed to think about my words.

"Don't get me wrong," I continued, "I'm glad you've gotten past a lot of the anger stuff...but trying to go on adventures with me to be better than Marco, or faking an interest in politics - I saw you fall asleep at that diplomacy meeting!"

"It was so boring!" Tom retorted.

"I mean, yeah, those suuuuuuuck, but I'm on the verge of Mewman and Monster peace," I replied, "we're just different Tom. I am really proud of you. But you need to be who you want to be. Not for me. I think...I think we should be friends."

There was an awkward pause as I stared at my boots. The cute ones with the horns. I mean, all my boots are cute. But, I had a hard time focusing on that. I felt awful about this. I know Tom cared about me. And he's grown a lot...but...the connection just wasn't there.

"Star...I...I understand." Tom said, sniffling, "but can I ask something?"

"I guess..." I muttered. I had a feeling I knew what it was gonna be.

"You love him, huh?" He asked. It didn't seem like it mattered how I answered. And...I didn't want to lie. He deserved to know.

I nodded. "Yeah. I got it bad. I uh...I've been asking the brain meats..." I gestured to my head, "and I do. And that's wrong to you, and I'm sorry." i grabbed his shoulder and frowned. "I never meant to hurt you, Tom. You didn't deserve that."

He sighed. "Maybe we can be friends...but...I need some time, alright? Can you tell Marco that too? I love our video game time, but I'd want to punch his face."

"I'll tell him. I don't want you to punch his face. And I don't want to ruin your guys' friendship." I said, guiltily.

He snickered a bit, though his eyes were watering. "It'll be alright. I think...part of me knew. Just go to your party. I'll see you around."

Awkwardly, I squeezed his shoulder with my hand. "You've grown. Take care of yourself, Tom."

I turned and hopped back in the carriage he had people use to get to the underworld, and sighed as the doors shut. I slumped back into my seat, defeated.

Even though that went well, break ups suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

\---  
No Point of View  
\---

Finn and Jake were reminiscing about all their time spent living in the treehouse. Turns out, since neither wanted it, Kim Kil Whan was willing to sell it for them, and they expected a good payout on it. As eight neared, plenty of Candy Kingdom citizens began to arrive, and a bunch of their other friends arrived: LSP, Lady, even Ice King had been invited, much to Jake's chagrin, though BMO promised to keep the nutcase busy.

"He's basically kind of our friend now, Jake," Finn told him, "besides, if PB can't resurrect Marcy, we'll probably need to keep an eye on him. We would owe it to her."

Jake groaned, causing Huntress Wizard to laugh. "I can help you guys," she offered.

"HuntWiz, you are the coolest girl Finn's dated. Thank you," Jake replied, on the verge of tears at less Ice King duty.

"Psh, of course I am!" She replied with a grin.

Even Princess Bubblegum took a break from the lab, hugging Finn and Jake as she saw them. "Thanks for doing this, guys," she said, "I needed something to pull me away from the lab. And you really stepped up to the plate with this Lich stuff."

Finn nodded, "Figured we all needed a break."

As if on cue, half a pair of scissors opened a portal on top of the tree house, freaking out the candy people a bit as Star, Marco, and an assortment of weird people Finn had never seen before stepped through, including a floating unicorn head and a girl who looked like she was a walking bush. Star immediately found them and ran up, somehow managing to wrap Finn, Huntress Wizard, and Jake up in a hug as Marco walked up to them not long after.

"This looks awesome, guys!" Star said, "But can I add a little something to it?"

"Be my guest, SB." Finn invited.

Star wound up her wand, and a disco ball dropped from a cloud, hanging over the treehouse, blasting flashing lights and some music across the Grasslands through Finn and Jake's speakers. "Just like the Bounce Lounge!" She squealed.

"Aw man, that's pretty rad!" Jake exclaimed, grabbing Princess Bubblegum to go dance. Star's friends followed after them.

"Aw sick," Finn agreed, "Let's go dance, HW!"

But before the two of them could run off, Star grabbed Finn's arm and said, "Wait!"

He turned, "What up?"

Star and Marco smiled to each other, and Star handed Finn the second wand they had used to battle the Lich.

"The wand? I thought you had to scronk that bad boy up?" Huntress Wizard asked.

"We had to really argue with the High Commission about this," Marco replied, "but we think you guys should keep it. Just in case something ever happens and we need it. It keeps it out of the hands off anyone on Mewni, and I don't think Ooo is super well known to anyone outside of us. Think you two can keep it safe?"

Finn grabbed the wand and smiled. It turned into the shape of the hilt of the Finn sword, reminding him of Fern. He shoved it into his backpack. "Yeah. Me and HW are going to moving into her place in the woods. It's pretty secluded, so it should be safe. You can count on me, bud."

Star squealed in excitement. "That's adorable! I'm so happy for you two! Now go shake it, you two!"

Artemis grabbed Finn's hands and said in his ear, "show me how you move those hot buns, baby."

Finn went bright red, but smiled. "You got it!"

Star and Marco smiled as the two lovebirds went off to dance.

"So is Tom joining us?" Marco asked.

Star shook her head. "No...we decided to end things."

"O-oh..." Marco stuttered nervously, unsure of what else to say.

"About that, Marco...I've been doing a lot of thinking and well...um..." She shuffled nervously, before shaking her head and yelling, "Come on, dance with me!"

"What? - WHOA!" Marco yelled as Star pulled him out to tree canopy.

As everyone danced, Ponyhead leaned over to the two and said, "Oh dang Star, this beat is killlllliiiin iiiiiit."

Jake leaned over and said, "It is, but girl, that ain't how you shake it!"

Ponyhead scoffed defiantly, "Um, excuse me, but, shaking it is my life old man."

"Nah, you gotta shake it...LIKE...THIS!" Jake hollered before dropping the beat on the speakers and shaking it like he never shook it before. Everyone stared in awe at Jake's crazy sick dance moves and joined in.

"THIS DOG IS THE RADDEST PARTIER!" Kelly screamed as her leaves shook to the sick, funky phat beats.

"Hey, what were you going to say earlier, Star?" Marco asked as they danced around each other, and the conversation caught the attention of Finn and Huntress Wizard.

Star turned red as they turned, "Just...I..."

Deep breath, she thought to herself, it's just like dipping down.

"IREALLYLIKEYOUANDITHINKYOUSHOULDDATEMEBECAUSEWE'REAWESOME!" She blurted out, quickly.

Marco turned bright red and stammered gibberish. Unsure of what to say, he looked over her shoulder to see Finn and Huntress Wizard were motioning for him to kiss her.

He smiled, leaned in, and kissed Star Butterfly. This time, under the right conditions. The two pulled apart and smiled at each other, cheeks a vibrant shade of red.

"I'm going to take that as a yes, Marco Diaz."

He laughed. "Figured that was better than words."

As the party began to die down later in the night, Finn and Marco bumped into each other at the sodas at the refreshment table.

"Hey lover boy, that was pretty smooth out there." Finn said, nudging him in the ribs.

"Heh...yeah, well, maybe I had a little help." Marco replied. Then he remembered something, "hey, did Princess Bubblegum tell you about...you recovering from the soul thing."

He shook his head, and looked at the stars. "Did it...have something to do with Fern?"

Marco was surprised, and asked, "How did you know?"

Finn smiled. "I just woke up with a hunch. You helped free him from the grass curse, huh?"

Marco nodded and looked at the stars too. "He wanted to thank you for all you tried to do for him. And not for you to beat yourself up."

They paused, and Marco added. "And I want to thank you too. You were nothing but cool to us since landing here. I don't make cool friends like you all the time."

"Thanks, M-doodle-daz." Finn said, putting an arm around him, "you're a good bud too."

"Marco, come on, let's dance more!" Star yelled, running over and pulling him away.

Finn smiled after the two of them as Artemis walked up to him, grabbing his hand.

"You ready to get back out there?" She asked, smiling.

"Totally!" Finn said, "It's Dance Party Time!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this story. It has been a pleasure to write as the finale of Adventure Time approaches.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews, comments, and constructive criticism are all welcome.


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